Feminists For a Free Palestine. Stop the Genocide. End the Occupation.
As scholars in feminist, queer, and trans studies who are rooted in social justice praxis, we refuse to stay silent while a genocide is ongoing in Gaza and a brutal war is unleashed to ethnically cleanse Palestine once again. We affirm that:
• We are against colonialism and genocide, whenever and wherever it is practiced.
• We are against military occupation and ethnic cleansing, whenever and wherever it is practiced.
• We are for the liberation and self-determination of colonized people, without exception.
• We believe that colonized people have the right to choose their means of resistance, within the boundaries of international law, without exception.
• We stand against apartheid, without exception.
• We stand against war crimes, without exception.
• We refuse the racist weighting of human life, without exception. Humanity is not a hierarchy.
• We refuse racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, sexist, casteist, and classist practices, discourse, and incitement to violence, without exception.
• We refuse the killing, maiming, kidnapping and imprisonment of children without exception, and we remember that half the population of the Gaza strip, which is effectively an open air prison, are children.
• We refuse the use of colonial feminism and pinkwashing to justify genocide, without exception.
• We refuse the use of greenwashing to cover up the destruction of land, trees, and water resources, without exception.
We will not be silent when the bells of genocide ring. Silence is complicity.
We refuse to participate in what Palestinian feminist scholars name, “Progressive Except for Palestine (PEP).” It is straightforward–not complicated–for anyone committed to feminist and queer studies to affix our names to the above statements. Intervening into corporatist, colonial, cis heteronormative and heterosexist, and racist structures within our universities and the world drives our academic field(s).
We will not stay silent while scholars and students who are speaking up and acting against this genocide are met with the profound, highly funded apparatus that represses, free speech and thought. Remaining silent amplifies the securitization and punishment of our Black, brown, Palestinian, Arab, Jewish or Muslim colleagues. We commit to standing up to the institutional denial of academic freedom on our campuses and any attempts to investigate, punish, or fire individuals enacting free speech rights.
We stand firm in our anticolonial and antiracist commitments, for we believe:
None of us are free until we are all free. Palestine is not an exception.
End the Siege. End the Occupation. Land Back.
Our feminism compels us to say: Free Palestine!
Tithi Bhattacharya, Houria Bouteldja, Karma Chavez, Maria Cotera, Angela Davis, Lisa Duggan, Zillah Eisenstein, Nada Elia, Noura Erakat, Sara Farris, Roderick Ferguson, Inderpal Grewal, Yasmin Gunaratnam, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Robin D.G. Kelley, Inderpal Grewal, Yasmin Gunaratnam, Maya Mikdashi, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Nadine Naber, Jasbir Puar, Barbara Ransby, Rahul Rao, Sherene Razzack, Beth Ritchie, Lynne Segal, Beverly-Guy Shuftal, Audra Simpson, Neferti X M Tadiar, Eve Tuck and Françoise Vergès.