Students for Justice in Palestine at University of Maryland

Why is Israel scared of accusations of apartheid? By: Nathan Feldman               Recently, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) released a human rights report on Israeli practices that concluded, from Reuters, that “Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole”. This report, published by Richard Falk, is the first of its kind originating from the UN. Soon after, the Israeli government, the Trump administration, and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres pressured Rima Khalaf, the head of ESCWA, to rescind the report. She refused and instead resigned in protest through a series of actions thoroughly outlined by Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept (article linked at bottom).               Now, my personal view is that this report is both accurate and long overdue, and it was a pleasant surprise that a UN age...

By William Matchin Two weeks ago, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, gave a lecture at the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at this university. His fundamental point was that we shouldn’t hold Israel to normal standards of international law because Israel has unique security concerns. The take-home message was that when Israel kills Palestinians and maintains an illegal occupation, we shouldn’t complain too much. Dermer pointed to Israel’s small size as evidence of this position. “Tactical threats” become “strategic threats,” because Israel’s small size means that military operations and rocket fire threaten its existence. Because of this, Israel is...

Last week, dozens of students and community members walked out of a lecture by the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer. Stories Beneath the Shell reporter Sierra Kelley-Chung reports on the action. http://umdsbs.com/events/566-students-protest-at-israeli-ambassador-lecture "A lecture by Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer sparked opposition among students, who walked out and held signs in protest last night at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Dermer gave a lecture about the Israel-U.S. relationship and the role of Israel in the Middle East. The event was held at Gildenhorn Recital Hall in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, broadcasted live on UMTV and open to students and public. During his lecture Dermer began to speak about the Israel Palestine conflict, stating that there was rocket fire in Israel, and one third of Israel was in bomb shelters for the first 50 days. A Palestinian student present at the lecture stood up and left, and a gr...

Sign the petition here *Updated 1/29/15* Racism has been allowed to cozy up to our student paper. The Diamondback has published a series of advertisements paid for by a far-right think tank called FLAME (“Facts and Logic About the Middle East”) that whitewashes the documented human rights violations of Israel. These ads are anti-Arab, Islamophobic propaganda. One ad, published in the September 30 th , 2013 edition of the paper, begins by denying the existence of the Palestinian people—it characterizes all Arabs as a monolithic group of people with no cultural, historical, or linguistic distinctions. So, it follows, the Palestinian people don’t exist —therefore Israel really is a land without a people for a people without land. Except that, inconveniently for the FLAME’s narrative, Palestinians have lived on that land for centuries, and are in fact a distinct people with a rich culture.   The ads continue by denying that the West Bank or the Gaza Strip have ever bee...

Screening of "Harvest of Empire", a documentary film about US imperialism and Latino immigration Co-sponsored with El Sol, PLUMAS, and Community Roots!  

Join us for our Palestinian Solidarity Week  April 28th-May 2nd 

SJP, University of Maryland Chapter has a new facebook page . Please add yourself to our group to stay up-do-date on SJP events and news!

Dear University President Dr. Wallace Loh, The American Studies Association, the Association for Asian American Studies, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association have all declared their support for the Palestinian call to boycott Israeli academic institutions. These are tremendous victories for the struggle against Israeli apartheid and the settler-colonial occupation of Palestine. The members of these associations have shown their integrity and courage by calling out Israel’s human rights violations against the Palestinian people, including Israel’s chronic restriction of academic freedom imposed upon Palestinian students and academics. It must be clear that the boycott is of institutions, not individuals. Israeli scholars have every right to research as they wish, but under the boycott they may not officially represent their universities or use their research to maintain the systematic oppression of the Palestinian people. The ASA, AAAS, and NAISA did not vote to bo...

We have recently learned that the administration of Northeastern University has suspended the Northeastern chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, alleging a series of violations of university policies – chiefly the distribution of mock eviction notices. Based on the evidence and on the testimony of the students involved, the charges seem false. In any event, non-university approved flier distribution happens constantly on every campus. For that reason, it is difficult for us to see this suspension as anything but an attempt to shut down an SJP chapter. Indeed, the punitive and racist nature of this action has become clearer yet with the revelation that the administration has appeared to target only students of color in the disciplinary charges it has filed. We reject this attempt at political censorship, and affirm here our solidarity with Northeastern SJP, and call on the Northeastern administration to immediately lift its suspension of that chapter. The charges have been ...

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"This morning, November 15, 2013, 25 years after Yasser Arafat declared independence of the Palestinian state, a group of Palestinian activists undertook a direct action against the annexation wall and fence, supported by both Israeli and international activists." Read more... Pictures included in the article! Solidarity!

Stanford, California. The site of the 3rd annual Students for Justice in Palestine national conference. Although this is my first semester on campus, I had the amazing opportunity to join hundreds of other students from around the country to discuss the politics of Palestinian liberation and BDS, and to learn skills necessary to lead successful campaigns against apartheid and occupation. The conference was held on Stanford's campus. Students who attended and applied were offered solidarity housing (often someone's dorm, a gym floor with sleeping bags provided, or one of several cooperative houses on campus-- I was in one of the coops). Sessions were held all around campus, though mostly near the student union. The first day of workshops centered on theoretical and historical understandings of Palestine, apartheid, the occupation, Israel's complicity in imperialism around the world, the Israeli lobby in the U.S.,  and race & class in Israel. There were also regional br...

               Video interview on our Mock Funeral action on October 14th with Your World News.

Video: students "mic check" TIAA-CREF head over investment in Israel's occupation

At approximately 3:00am local time last night, the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council voted 5-7-0 against a  resolution  that threatened the ability of students to pursue divestment from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation.... Read more

In November the American Studies Association will vote on whether to join the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Please sign and share  THIS PETITION  to help build support for this resolution!

An  Israeli high court  decision on 16 September striking down legislation authorizing the indefinite incarceration of  asylum-seekers  from Africa brought hundreds of residents of  Tel Aviv  into the streets in protest the following day. Read More....