Illinois university removes letter accusing Israel of genocide

Antisemitic incidents on college campuses have surged by 323% in recent months.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

The Department of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has deleted a statement from its website accusing Israel of “genocide” and “settler colonial violence.”

“We are committed to critical if sometimes difficult conversations about the historical context of Israel’s ongoing genocide and occupation of Palestine,” said the letter, posted on Dec. 18 and cosigned by the Department of Asian American Studies and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.

“We affirm the value of Palestinian life, and we know a free Palestine is only possible through queer, racial, gender, reproductive, and environmental justice. We offer our classrooms as a space for you to take refuge and find the strength to change the world together,” it continued, while suggesting that Israel’s existence fosters anti-Black racism.

The letter, which was addressed to the departments’ students, has since been taken down from the university website.

This is not the first time that academic departments at UIUC have waded into politics. Amid the 2021 conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, four departments at the school — Gender and Women’s Studies, Urban and Regional Planning, Asian American Studies, and History — issued statements pledging “solidarity” with Palestinians and variously accused Israel of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler colonialism. After over 40 faculty members lodged a complaint about the statements, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UIUC) administrators said that the school would not ask academic departments to abstain from political advocacy.

That policy has since been revised and, according to an Algemeiner source, is the reason why the Department of Latina/Latino Studies deleted the letter.

“Faculty have the academic freedom to sign any petition they want, although one would hope they’d exercise good judgement, do basic fact-checking, and avoid endorsing inflammatory statements,” Academic Engagement Network (AEN) executive director Miriam Elman told The Algemeiner on Friday in a statement commenting on the letter. “Academic units, and especially degree-granting departments, should not be issuing politicized, divisive statements that establish orthodoxies, chill dissent, and alienate and marginalize those who may disagree — especially students and vulnerable junior faculty.”

Elman noted that it’s unlikely that Jewish and Zionist students will “feel welcome and respected in these departments” and cheered “the university leaders who intervened swiftly to remove the statement from official university channels.”

According to documents shared with The Algemeiner, since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, extreme anti-Zionism, as well as platforming of individuals who have promoted antisemitic conspiracies and tropes, has exploded at UIUC. Two months after the attack, the Women & Gender in Global Perspectives Program added two virulently anti-Zionist panelists, Susan Abulhawa and Laila El-Haddad, to what was scheduled to be a one-on-one conversation featuring a pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian speaker.

Abulhawa has accused Israel of committing “a dozen kristallnachts [sic],” referring to the infamous pogrom carried out against Jews in Nazi Germany in November 1938. Abulhawa’s viewpoints are so controversial that a sponsor of an Australian festival she was scheduled to participate in pulled its support. After Oct. 7 she also rationalized Hamas’ massacre on her Facebook page.

El-Haddad is a member of a pro-Palestinian think tank that has regularly shared articles celebrating Hamas’ violence and promoting false allegations of Israeli apartheid and genocide.

Later, the event was canceled after Abulhawa allegedly refused to share a stage with a Zionist. In its place, the school’s Graduate Employee Organization (GEO) held a panel in which UIUC Students for Justice in Palestine member Sara Hijab said, “I hope you realize the evil Zionism is and that it has no place anywhere in the world.” Labor and Employment Relations professor Augustus Wood added, “The armed resistance should not be referred to in crude inhumane terms such as terrorists,” apparently referring to Hamas.

US college campuses have experienced an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students— since Oct. 7. Between that day and Dec. 18, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses , and during that same period, antisemitic incidents across the US skyrocketed by 323 percent compared to the prior year.

Last month, the ADL called out American colleges and universities in an open letter, reminding them of their obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment and intimidation.

“Shockingly, many students engaging in this activity — including harassment, intimidation, and other clear violations of student codes of conduct — have not faced consequences,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote. “Universities have by and large been derelict in their duty to protect Jewish communities on campus, in many cases raising serious concern under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Simply put, to date, there have been too few consequences — that must change.”

AntisemitismGenocideUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign