Names withheld to maintain the standing of those who submitted this letter with The University of Tulsa, for scholarships or official positions. Since October 2023 when Palestinian militants launched their resistance campaign against enduring Israeli apartheid, US taxpayers have funded a state-sponsored program of ethnic cleansing and genocide. For nearly a year, the world has watched indiscriminate acts of death and destruction unleashed upon innocent babies, children, women, and men living in the Gaza Strip.
Shockingly, the Biden administration has — and continues to — provide war materiel to the IDF (Israeli “Defense” Forces) while uncritically supporting the fascist Netanyahu regime. In the last 10 months, Israeli airborne annihilation intentionally unleashed on the citizens of Gaza has exceeded the total amount of bombing dropped on Hiroshima, Dresden, and London during World War Two combined. To put it simply, the US and Israel have made manifest the equivalent of six Hiroshima bombs in their murderous assault on Gaza. As a result, an estimated 186,000 Palestinians have died because of Israeli/US actions so far this year, according to Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, and Salim Yusuf in “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential.”
Meantime, free speech on college campuses is being censured by university administrations most sympathetic to their wealthy donors and corporations. Seeking to further silence pro-Palestinian peace activists, bureaucrats at NYU have recently determined that “Zionists” are now protected by the university administration. Anyone now who speaks out against these ethno-nationalists can be deemed in violation of college discrimination policies and subsequently suspended, expelled, and/or arrested, according to Natasha Lennard in “Zionist is now a protected class at NYU.”
We live in troubled times, to say the least. Shamefully, the two mainstream party presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both condone the genocide. Serving silently until her recent coronation as DNC hopeful, Vice President Harris — along with her boss (still acting?) President Joe Biden — is directly and utterly complicit.
Amazingly now, some look to her to “save us from the Red Menace” in becoming the “first black woman president.” “History is being made.” Yet to support Harris is to turn a blind eye to US government involvement in Israel’s ethnic cleansing and suicidal recklessness in dealing with its neighbors in the region. Tragically, the Democratic Party is the party of war, censorship, and corporate corruption.
Whether considering the NATO-fueled tragedy in Ukraine or the genocide in Gaza, we are on the brink of World War Three — perhaps even nuclear Armageddon. Disgustingly, neoconservatives from both of the two major parties in Washington criminally conspire with their unpopular Western allies. When observing global conflict, the US government is largely responsible.
What is to be done? Will we at The University of Tulsa campus community remain silent? Will we continue business as usual while the world is on the brink of disaster?
We think not.
Last spring we held a demonstration outside of Collins Hall to protest the situation in Gaza.
This semester we continue our campaign and seek to build a diverse movement of students, staff, and faculty who refuse to remain silent while Washington elites continue their imperial program of mass death and destruction.
As we begin the fall semester now after the Labor Day holiday, let us recognize the urgency of the current crisis. Let us educate ourselves and others. As intellectuals and community leaders let us see past our petty differences and find a way to come together to speak out against the killing.
Editor’s Note: The Collegian accepts articles and statements in all forms, preferably identifiable. Anonymity can be granted under certain circumstances.
