GEO Response to Chancellor Jones’s Statement on Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism
Prior to Fall break, Chancellor Jones sent a mass mail to all students, faculty and staff to remind everyone that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) will be a place where its affiliates will find the “freedom and security to grow, to explore and to express their whole and best selves.” He stated that the university deplores all acts of anti-Semitism, but his definition of anti-Semitism included any critique directed towards the current state of Israel, pro-Israel students and Zionism. He then added “For many Jewish students, Zionism is an integral part of their identity and their ethnic and ancestral heritage” and it is in this statement where we find many problems. A political ideology, such as Zionism, infiltrates religious interpretations to be equated by exegesis, and therefore under this formulation any critique of the political ideology would be an attack on the whole Jewish religion and community. This is not the first time we have received statements from UIUC that conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and it is not the first time we have been compelled to respond. We find this vagueness in the statement’s wording around anti-Semitism to be problematic because it serves as an attack on any intellectual, secular movement that attempts to critique the current state of Israel, Zionism, and ethnonationalism predicated on exclusionary religious interpretations. The GEO condemns the university’s repetitive conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and urges the administration to center and prioritize human rights in every stance it takes on any issue.
We recognize, we empathize with, and we support those who experience anti-Semitism and we abhor any intolerable acts that undermine the freedom of religion. We believe, as advocates for human rights, that anti-Semitism is dangerous and can lead to perilous physical harm against the Jewish community. We denounce all these acts as they negate the premise of human rights, freedom of religion and freedom of expression. We stand with the Jewish community in fighting anti-Semitism.
Simultaneously, we firmly reject the political misuse of Zionism that condemns every sympathy with Palestinians as anti-Semitic. The Chancellor’s mass mail sends an unclear and uncritical message, where the pro-Zionist form of cognitive mapping insinuates that any critical stance against Zionism should be equated with anti-Semitism and acts of hate towards Jewish people. We refuse to uncritically examine what Zionism as a political ideology stands for, and we encourage people to challenge such misunderstanding and political misuse. We recognize that there are Jewish community members who oppose and are critical of Zionism, and whose rights to express those critiques are being undermined. We stand in solidarity with organizations, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, who speak out about human rights abuses against Palestinians by the state of Israel and have repeatedly attempted to engage productively with the university on these issues, only to be attacked and vilified by the administration.
We cannot promote social justice, equality and human rights while simultaneously promoting ethnonationalism or religious superiority. But it seems the Chancellor has shown once again that only the rights of those who meet the university’s criteria are worthy of protecting.
You can read and sign on to the Students for Justice in Palestine’s response to the administration on this issue here.
The Graduate Employees’ Organization, AFT/IFT Local 6300, AFL-CIO, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, represents approximately 2,700 Teaching and Graduate Assistants on the UIUC Campus. In November 2009 and in February 2018, over 1,000 GEO members and allies participated in a strike to secure a fair contract and more accessible UIUC campus. With an active presence in the community, the GEO continues to work for high-quality and accessible public education in Illinois.
For more information, please contact geo@uigeo.org. More information can also be found on GEO’s website at www.uiucgeo.org.
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