02/14/2019
MEChxA's Statement of Solidarity for GUPS:
We, MEChXA de San Pancho, stand in solidarity with our fellow comrades, the General Union of Palestine Students, Dr. Abdulhadi, the AMED studies program and all other peoples involved in struggles for self-determination and liberation of their ancestral land.
San Francisco State University continues to ignore the safety and well-being of Palestinian students, faculty, and allies. The university’s administration has not condemned racism and Zionism or apologized for openly inviting violence/hatred to our campus. The university has reflected their opposition of the livelihood of an oppressed people living under military occupation by remaining complicit to Zionist interests and perpetuating the normalization of ethnic cleansing/genocide with their decision to recognize “Israel Independence Day” as a religious holiday that is now listed under SFSU’s religious observances. In a faculty-wide email, “Israel Independence Day” is included on a list of recognized religious holidays to inform staff on what days students can request absences on a religious basis. “Israel Independence Day” is the only Independence Day is recognized as a campus holiday, nonetheless as a religious one. While this date has been legitimized by administration as a religious “holiday,” there are several actual religious dates not included in the email, including Ramadan and Eid al Fitr.
“Israel Independence Day” is the anniversary of the Nakba, meaning “catastrophe,” a historic event that lead to the death and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with the sole purpose of reinforcing a colonial state in Palestine. For that reason, to celebrate this day is to celebrate the ethnic cleansing of Arab people and the establishment of a settler-colonial state. The university has again failed to protect Arab and Palestinian students on campus by assigning validity to “Israel Independence Day,” along with the military occupation and seizure of land that came with it, and failing to acknowledge the symbolic violence caused to our students by overwriting the anniversary of Nakba as a “holiday.” Doing so underscores the university’s lack of commitment and care for the well-being of Palestinians on campus.
We call on the SFSU administration to immediately retract recognizing “Israel Independence Day” as a religious holiday. If you are outraged that SFSU is choosing to consider a day that marks violence, colonization and ethnic cleansing religious holiday, let the people responsible for this know by calling or emailing them right now.
President Wong
Telephone: (415) 338-1381
Email: [email protected]
Provost Summit
Telephone: (415) 338-1141
Email: [email protected]
University Counsel Dan Ojeda:
Telephone: (415) 338-2998
Email: [email protected]
Interim Dean Amy Sueyoshi:
Telephone: (415) 338-1693
Email: [email protected]
