October 18, 2023

War is not the answer:

"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality." 

-James Baldwin, “Notes on the House of Bondage,” The Nation, November 1, 1980. 

We write this first for our students, of diverse backgrounds, who may be wondering how to respond to the global tragedy of the attack by Hamas against innocent civilians in Israel, and the ongoing attack by the Israeli government against innocent civilians in Gaza. As thinkers, writers, academics, and humans, we cannot stay silent in the face of acts of mass violence and terror against innocent civilians. Right now, 2.3 million people, 50% of whom are children, are being massacred by the Israeli military, with weaponry that is funded by our tax dollars. The people of Gaza are facing indiscriminate bombing and have been deprived of food, water, power and medicine. This is an urgent humanitarian crisis.

We write this for our communities here at Stony Brook University, who may be looking for an opening to talk, cry, argue, and struggle together, with honesty and authenticity about the violence that has erupted in Israel-Palestine this week, and the violence that has been there in Israel-Palestine.  

We write this because the official statements offered by President Maurie McInnis correctly  condemned the terror caused by Hamas, but ignored the terror caused by the government of Israel. This was a disservice to our community. President McInnis's statements mirrored and extended the silence surrounding Palestinian self-determination, and ignored the violence that the Israel government has been and is meting out against Palestinians. Our Palestinian students, colleagues, and staff deserve better than this. Israeli lives, histories, and suffering are not worth more than, and should not be privileged over the lives of Palestinians. The grief of Jewish people should not be weaponized for a campaign of terror against the entire population of Gaza. Until this pattern of devaluing Palestinian lives, so prominent in the United States, is broken, the road to peace will be blocked. 

We write because we need a different conversation at Stony Brook, one that dares to reach toward peace by refusing to dehumanize Palestinians or to ignore Palestinians' right to life, security, and self-determination, while also recognizing the right of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of Israel to live with safety and security.

(Because unacknowledged ghosts are hungry we mourn the blood that has been spilled in Israel. We mourn the killing and loss of human life, not only in this month but also in all that has come before. 

Because unacknowledged ghosts are hungry we mourn the blood that has been spilled in Palestine. We mourn the killing and loss of human life, not only in this month but all that has come before. )

As we mourn the history of the Holocaust, Israeli settlement, Palestinian expulsion and all that has already happened, we refuse to sit silently as the shrouds become longer, as the graves become deeper.  The Israeli government's ongoing siege against Gaza is a war crime, unfolding around us, and because it is the now, it can and must be stopped.  

We urge the Stony Brook University community to exercise our power as citizens and residents of the United States to demand that the U.S. government cease funding Israel's collective punishment in Gaza. 

We urge our community to refuse the genocidal and dehumanizing language and patterns that are being utilized at the highest levels to justify the Israeli siege against Gaza. 

We urge our community to make room for peace, to cast aside the broken status quo of apartheid, occupation, and complicit silence, and reach toward a peace that is rooted both in history and our shared humanity. 

Abena Ampofoa Asare (Africana Studies) 

Josh Dubnau (Anesthesiology, Neurobiology and Behavior)

Benjamin Tausig (Music)

Aurélie Vialette (Hispanic Languages and Literature)

Stacey Finkelstein (Marketing)

Nerissa S. Balce (Asian and Asian American Studies)

Maya Schindler (Studio Art) 

Anna Hayward (School of Social Welfare)

Liz Montegary (Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies)

Crystal Fleming (Sociology, Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies)

Patrice Nganang (Africana Studies) 

Shirley Jennifer Lim (History, Asian and Asian American Studies, Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Africana Studies)

Jackie Donnelly (Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)

Joel Rosenthal (History, emeritus)

Odalis Hernández, (Pharmacology, Neurobiology and Physiology depts.)

Lena Burgos-Lafuente (Hispanic Languages and Literature)

Kathleen Fallon (Sociology)

Katherine Johnston (Department of English, Program in Writing and Rhetoric)