Yale student council condemns ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘apartheid’ in Palestine
The Yale College Council, the undergraduate student body at the school, has voted to endorse a statement condemning ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The statement was originally authored last month by the campus group Yalies 4 Palestine.
“As Yale students, we condemn the injustice, genocide, and ethnic cleansing
occurring in Palestine,” reads the statement. “We emphasize – this is not a political issue. Israeli forces are acting in clear violation of international law and are conducting egregious human rights violations against the Palestinian people. As students at one of the most privileged academic institutions in the world, we must call out injustice wherever it may occur. We stand against the discriminatory application of the law that strips Palestinians of basic rights. We stand against the violent expulsions of those living
under occupation in Sheikh Jarrah. We stand against the apartheid and the persecution of Palestinians, and stand for peace and the freedom of the Palestinian people from violent military occupation.”
The statement also calls on Yale students to “recognize the connections between the US’s domestic racial oppression and its imperial oppression against people of color worldwide.”
The resolution was opposed by campus pro-Israel groups, including Yale Hillel who claimed the statement had “antisemitic overtones.” However, the final vote was eight for the statement and three against it. Four members abstained.
“This is historic for me and all Palestinian students at Yale and in the US,” tweeted a Yalies 4 Palestine member Salma Shaheen from Hebron. “Today we stood with all of our allies-especially Yale Jews for Palestine- to show that enough is enough.”
The vote coincides with a statement put out by Yale Jews for Palestine and signed by over one hundred Jewish students and alumni. That statement calls for Yale to divest from Israel and affirms the group’s support for the BDS movement.
“We envision a Judaism that is inherently anti-racist and anti-Zionist, and we reject the conflation of Zionism with Judaism that labels anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic,” it reads. “We will not allow our Jewishness and our history of struggle to be weaponized in order to commit pogroms, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.”
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