[Editor’s note: Open letters published in the Bi-College News do not reflect the views of the publication, its staff, or its editorial board. This letter represent only the views of the author. The Bi-Co News continues to strive to reflect the perspectives and experiences of all students across the Consortium.]
As members of Bi-Co Jewish Voice for Peace, we extend our full love, support, and deep anger and grief for our friend and community member Kinnan, his friends Hisham and Tahseen, and the Bi-College Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim community. Our Jewish values call on us to stand in solidarity against racism and oppression of all kinds — especially when one of our own friends and community members is the subject of a hateful and violent attack.
The horrific attack on November 27 against these three young Palestinian students is a virulent manifestation of bitter anti-Palestinian hatred and racism. Two of the students were wearing keffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian liberation, while they were attacked. However, we must recognize, in the words of Hisham, this violence “did not happen in a vacuum.” Since Israel began its genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, killing over 20,000 Palestinians and forcing more than 1.7 million from their homes, US media, educational institutions, and elected officials have brazenly repeated racist and dehumanizing rhetoric against Palestinians. This language has directly contributed to the drastic increase in acts of violence against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims across the United States over the last seven weeks. On October 11, an attacker brutally stabbed to death six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American child. Just this week, a Palestinian American man was violently attacked in Jersey City for his identity. To merely exist as a Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim continues to be a threat to one’s own safety.
In the midst of this dangerous rise in hatred and violence against Palestinians, emboldened by racist language repeated by US elected officials, Haverford and Bryn Mawr have failed to provide substantive academic and psychological support for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students and have neglected their safety concerns. On November 8th, for instance, Haverford president Wendy Raymond sent an all-school email that diminished the dangerous reality of Islamophobia by grouping it with “other forms of hate-based discrimination” and declining to specifically address fears for the well-being of Palestinian and Arab students. No student should have to fear for their basic needs and safety while on campus. Haverford must do better.
As Jewish students, we stand in solidarity with Students for Peace, who recently presented their restorative list of demands to hold Haverford accountable for these harms. We call on Haverford to meet Students for Peace’s demands and create a safer environment for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students.
Love and solidarity,
Bi-Co JVP
