Take action this Ramadan

Dear friends,

I’m writing to you on the first day of Ramadan with a brief update and an important action item. There is very little joy in the holidays as we watch the ongoing US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Nonetheless, those of us at GSC wish everyone a peaceful and meaningful Ramadan.

In Gaza, the US-backed Israeli genocide continues. The number of confirmed Palestinian martyrs in Gaza murdered by Israel since October 7 is now 31,112. This only includes those who have been recovered and counted at hospitals. Thousands of others remain trapped under the rubble of buildings or left on the streets, with their community members unable to reach them due to the threat of lethal Israeli violence. 72,760 Palestinians in Gaza have been injured.

Every day, more people die of dehydration and malnutrition, imposed by the blockade, which has now continued for more than 150 days. Though reportedly thousands of trucks wait to enter Gaza through multiple crossings, Israeli settlers are preventing their entry, allegedly in collaboration with the state and its armed forces. At least 25 people in Gaza have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in hospitals. This morning alone, two babies died in Kamal Adwan Hospital, Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza.

While dehydration, starvation, and disease run rampant throughout Gaza, imposed by the blockade upheld by the US and Israel, Israeli forces have continued to carry out mass arrest campaigns throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem in particular. Yesterday and today at least 25 people were kidnapped from throughout the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club and the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission. This means that the total number of Palestinians kidnapped and arrested since October 7 is approximately 7,530. This includes prisoners who have been re-arrested after being released from occupation prisons. According to the organizations listed above, more than 9,000 Palestinian prisoners are facing a policy of starvation, neglect, and deprivation inside of the occupation prisons. With Ramadan’s arrival they are also being deprived of their right to practice religious rituals. Many are held without charge and without trial.

With the endless barrage of violence against Palestinians in Palestine, and the rhetorical violence all people of conscience are subjected to in the midst of this genocide, we are all impelled to speak out where and when we can. While we collectively push for a future of liberation, safety, and justice, we must stand with one another as individuals make choices that put their careers, security, and livelihoods at risk. We must love and protect one another. Therefore, we ask you to engage with and uplift the following action item.

Dr. Jairo Fúnez-Flores is a professor of decolonial theory at Texas Tech University who is being subjected to attacks and threats against his career due to his unrelenting public support for Palestine and decolonization. While Professor Fúnez-Flores courageously and unabashedly stands with oppressed and colonized people resisting genocide in Palestine, zionists have organized to threaten his career under the claim of “antisemitism,” causing his university to suspend him on baseless grounds and without investigation. You can support Dr. Fúnez-Flores by signing this letter and/or writing your own letter and sending it to this email to be collected and submitted to the university administration: letters4aJairo@gmail.com. Please submit letters by March 15.

Please address your letter to Texas Tech University officials. If you need talking points to get you going, you might consider relating to the need for academic freedom, the value of freedom of speech, the importance of not pandering to political agendas, noting that resisting genocide is not antisemitism, the harm these kinds of accusations cause to real threats of antisemitism and other forms of violence, and the dangers of censorship.

If you would like any more information, please feel free to reach out in response to this email.

Please reach out if you have additional action items you’d like us to uplift.

Until liberation and return, Lara