Joint Statement from University of Oxford Groups: Stand with Palestine. End the Siege on Gaza.

13 October 2023 | 1:00pm

We, the undersigned members of the University of Oxford community, stand in unequivocal support of Palestinian liberation. We mourn the incalculable loss of life in this week’s unprecedented violence and the tremendous harm inflicted upon all affected civilians as events continue to unfold. We also recognise that this continuous harm is rooted in the tragedies of illegal occupation, human rights abuses, and apartheid that have persisted since the onset of the Nakba in 1948. We therefore echo millions across the globe in our demand for peace and justice.

Most urgently, we call for an immediate end to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza — a relentless bombing campaign against over 2 million people, half of whom are children, ruthlessly cut off from food, water, fuel, and electricity with no way to escape. Beyond this, we affirm that peace and justice require addressing the root cause of ongoing violence: Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid.

We strongly support the following as the only viable path towards justice and peace:

• An immediate end to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, which worsens with each passing hour.
• Lifting the inhumane 17-year-long air, sea, and land blockade of Gaza.
• Freeing all Palestinian political prisoners, many of whom are children.
• Ending the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and halting the expansion of illegal settlements.
• Abolishing Israeli apartheid policies that systematically marginalize and discriminate against Palestinians socially, economically, and politically.
• Granting the right of return to all Palestinian refugees, both within Palestinian territories and worldwide.
• Rejecting imperialist intervention and any negotiations that exclude Palestinians or dismiss their right to self-determination.

These demands are not new. This statement joins a growing chorus from Palestinians, international human rights organisations, the United Nations OHCR, over 140 countries in the UN General Assembly, and millions across the globe who sympathise with the Palestinian cause — including here in the United Kingdom, where a record-breaking 180,000 people marched for these demands in a single day in 2021.

This is because the events of the past several days did not take place in a vacuum: rather, they are the result of Palestinians’ long-brewing and well-founded anger in response to Israel forcing them to live in an open-air prison for decades. Prominent international and Israeli human rights organisations have released detailed reports outlining how Israel’s actions fit the international definition of the crime of apartheid — a crime Palestinian human rights organisations have clearly outlined for decades. The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Palestine also stated in 2018 that Gaza has become unlivable “with an economy in free fall, 70% youth unemployment, widely contaminated drinking water and a collapsed health care system.” That was five years ago. Gaza is even more unlivable now: the Israeli state continues to deny Palestinians the right to move unimpeded within their own country, to build on their own land, to access key natural resources and farmland, and to obtain international aid delivered to mitigate the very situation Israel’s occupation has caused. This is not a complicated “conflict;” it is settler-colonialism by all standards.

The already unimaginable conditions that Palestinians face will only get worse. On Monday, after describing Palestinians as “beastly people,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that authorities will cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel as part of a “complete siege” on Gaza. This “complete siege” is already underway, subjecting 2.3 million people — civilians and otherwise — to a horrific act of collective punishment — a violation of international law of which Israel has been a repeat offender, according to prominent human rights organisations. Israel has one of the most advanced militaries in the world, and it continues to receive billions of dollars in support from powerful governments around the world — including additional military reinforcements from the United States this week. Israel is currently using its ample resources to indiscriminately bomb the millions in Gaza, with tacit support from global powers. Every nation that has declared its unimpeded support for Israel is complicit in its genocidal campaign against the people of Palestine and Gaza.

Misrepresenting this monopoly of power as a “conflict” distracts from Israel’s suffocation of the Palestinian people, both in the open-air prison of Gaza and beyond. Preventing further disaster requires we confront the reality of Israel’s oppressive regime directly. Jewish Voice for Peace, an American anti-Zionist organisation, did so in their statement this week, demanding an end of U.S. military aid to Israel:

“For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime…We all deserve liberation, safety, and equality. The only way to get there is by uprooting the sources of the violence, beginning with our own government’s complicity.”

Just as Jewish Voice for Peace seeks to tackle the United States’ funding of Israeli violence, we seek to do the same here at Oxford. We are members of a University which has upheld colonial power structures in innumerable ways, and we are residents of a country which continues to support Israeli aggression. We therefore cannot sit idle while Palestinians face a multi-tiered system of oppression and violence designed to privilege Jewish Israelis over Palestinians in nearly every aspect of life. As our governing bodies and media outlets dehumanise Palestinians and tacitly condone their suffocation, it is our responsibility to collectively reject these false narratives.

History has shown us those in power rarely stand on the side of justice. They wait until the history books deem a revolutionary movement to have been “justified,” celebrating whitewashed holidays generations later rather than supporting liberation in real-time. This was true in the American Civil Rights Movement, it was true in apartheid South Africa, and it remains true for Palestine today. We therefore expect the University of Oxford, the United Kingdom, and many in the international community to choose inaction and complicity over a substantive repudiation of colonial violence. Yet decolonisation remains the necessary and only path to peace and justice. Author and abolitionist Angela Davis reminds us that, similar to the South African struggle, “solidarity with Palestine must likewise be taken up by organizations and movements involved in progressive causes all over the world. … This is precisely the moment to encourage everyone who believes in equality and justice to join the call for a free Palestine.”

Now more than ever, Davis’s words ring true: we must all join the call for a free Palestine. While our governing bodies continue to embolden Israeli violence, we write to reify our support of the Palestinian cause — and we will continue to do so until Palestine is free.

Forever in solidarity,

• Oxford Palestine Society
• Rhodes Scholars for Palestine
• Oxford Arab Society
• 26 members of the Black Association of Rhodes Scholars
• Oxford Bangladesh Society
• Oxford Iranian Society
• Oxford Pakistan Society
• Oxford South Asian Society
• Oxford South Asian Ambedkar Forum
• Oxford Syria Society
• Oxford Sudanese Society
• Oxford AhlulBayt Islamic Society
• Conveners of the Oxford Critical Theory Seminar
• Divest Borders Oxford
• Marxist Society, Socialist Appeal Oxford

Signatories will continue to be updated in real-time. Check back for updates.