06/02/2021
We want to thank CUSC for their statement, and offer J Street as a space for students to get/share resources and come together as a community to learn, discuss, and fight for change. As more students both at Clark and across the nation engage with the ongoing events in Palestine and Israel, we must continue to stay vigilant about the impact of our words. For Palestinians and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, feelings about the region are closely associated with the generational trauma of the Holocaust, the Nakba, and violence against Middle Eastern and North African Jews. As we continue to have these conversations and participate in activism on campus, as it is necessary that we do, we must strive to create an environment of respect, understanding, and healing. As a Clark community, we are a force to be reckoned with, and our voices are immensely powerful in the fight for human rights.
In this moment, our hearts are with the Palestinian people suffering in Sheikh Jarrah, Gaza, across the region, and across the globe. Our hearts also go out to all Israelis who have suffered from the recent rocket attacks and continue to suffer from this ongoing conflict. We give our continued support to Palestinians struggling for freedom, Israelis speaking out against the actions of their government, and Americans striving to hold their government accountable for its role in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
In our time in J Street there have been settlement expansions, home demolitions, and a rise in Islamophobia, antisemitism, and white supremacy. As a club that strives to make our activism intersectional, these, and other acts of prejudice, oppression, and violence that surround the occupation, call for us to continually educate ourselves, learn from one another, and demand change in our institutions and governments.
J Street Clark is a space that has been facilitating dialogue and activism around Palestine and Israel for eight years on Clark's campus, and will continue to do so. J Street is a national organization that has many college chapters, Clark being one of them. We are anti-occupation, anti-annexation, and stand against ongoing injustice and the oppression of Palestinians living under occupation.
We want to take this as an opportunity to reintroduce J Street Clark as the space we imagine it to be, and that we will work towards making it. In Washington DC, the streets are organized using the letters A-Z. “J” is the only letter that is not used. The J in “J Street” represents the voices of those who are underrepresented and unheard in Washington. We hope to make J Street Clark a space for those same voices.
We want to recognize that we have not made enough of an effort to make J Street an inclusive and inviting space for non-Jews and students of color at Clark. As we move forward, we will change this, making J Street a space where the many many voices on Clark’s campus calling for Palestinian rights are heard and represented.
