Communications
Puerto Rican Studies Association Statement of Solidarity with Gaza
October 23, 2023: The state of Israel has declared war on Gaza. The already fragile infrastructure in Gaza has been decimated, depriving Palestinians of necessary lifegiving resources. Right now, 2.3 million Palestinians have had their access to water, medicine, food, electricity, and fuel cut off. Israel has indiscriminately bombed hospitals, houses of worship, bakeries, residential buildings, telecommunication infrastructure, and even the evacuation routes for refugees who were told by the military to flee the area. We mourn the lives lost and fear all the lives that will be stolen as this violence continues. The Executive Council of the Puerto Rican Studies Association (PRSA) joins the growing international call for an immediate ceasefire. We stand in solidarity with Palestinians and condemn in the strongest possible terms the unfolding genocide in Gaza.
Israeli officials have repeatedly deployed dehumanizing rhetoric to justify their genocidal actions in Gaza. Israeli War Minister Yoav Gallant told the media, “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset, Israel’s legislature, “This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” He also repeated this remark on X (formerly Twitter) in a since deleted post. These remarks, just two of many that have been circulating in political and popular discourse, play on the longstanding racist ideologies embedded within the Israeli settler colonial project that have denied Palestinian humanity and justified ethnic cleansing for 75 years. These comments are being recycled in U.S. media discourse, inevitably leading to anti-Palestinian violence, as evidenced in the tragic murder of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume, who was stabbed to death by his landlord Joseph Czuba while he shouted at the child and his mother: “You Muslims must die!”
As Puerto Rican studies scholars, we study the material violence of colonialism and how it dehumanizes the colonized. Palestine figures into our analysis in ways both comparative and relational. As scholar Sara Awartani notes in “In Solidarity: Palestine in the Puerto Rican Political Imaginary,” we need to “interrogate Puerto Rico and Palestine as part of a larger system of global processes, be they imperialism, settler colonialism, or demands for decolonization.” From the shared struggles to free political prisoners to the recognition that bombs tested in Vieques were dropped in Palestine, Puerto Ricans and Palestinians have pointed to the ways that resistance against Israeli and U.S. colonial violence has forged a powerful solidarity between them. Puerto Ricans in San Juan, New York, Chicago, and elsewhere, have taken to the streets to stand shoulder to shoulder with Palestinians in demanding a liberated future rooted in self-determination. Further, as Palestinians have been violently displaced from their own lands, a sizable diaspora has settled in Puerto Rico and alongside Puerto Ricans in communities in the U.S. For many Puerto Ricans, Palestinians are our neighbors, colleagues, family, and friends and we reject any discourses that aim to further isolate Palestinians.
Since its inception, the Puerto Rican Studies Association has been dedicated to the study of colonialism, dispossession, and resistance. We believe it is necessary to be consistent in denouncing colonial violence and structures of racial subjugation wherever they take place, including in Palestine. We stand with our colleagues at Birzeit University who have called upon those of us at academic institutions outside of Palestine to “fulfill their intellectual and academic duty of seeking truth, maintaining a critical distance from state-sponsored propaganda, and to hold the perpetrators of genocide and those complicit with them accountable.” We encourage our members to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and demand an end to the genocidal violence in Gaza.
Below, we offer a list of resources to learn more and take action.
In solidarity,
The PRSA Executive Council
Further Resources:
Palestinian Feminist Collective
Samidoun Calendar of Resistance for Palestine (regularly updated list of actions and events)
US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Call for Gaza and List of Protests
Teaching Palestine resources from the University of Illinois Chicago Critical Asian Studies
Palestinian Youth Movement Reading List
Decolonizing Higher Education: Pedagogy, Curriculum, and Organizing, Cross CUNY Working Group
Haymarket Free E-Books for a Free Palestine
Sara Awartani, “Puerto Rican Decolonization, Armed Struggle and the Question of Palestine”