Suspend US Military Aid to Egypt: An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

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Apr 18, 2016 Egypt
[The flag of the Arab Egyptian Republic.] [The flag of the Arab Egyptian Republic.]

Suspend US Military Aid to Egypt: An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following is an open letter, signed by scholars of Egypt and the Middle East, calling on US President Barack Obama to support civilian, democratic rule in Egypt by suspending military aid to the country.]

An Open Letter to President Barack Obama

18 April 2016

Dear President Obama,

As scholars of Egypt and the Middle East, we the undersigned would like to urge you, on Tax Day, to support civilian, democratic rule in Egypt by suspending military aid to the country.

For more than thirty years, the US government has spent billions of dollars to help build and sustain a system of rule that does not serve the interests of the Egyptian people. The core of that regime has always been a small military class whose power is underwritten by American taxpayers. This was true under Hosni Mubarak and it is just as true today.

The current president of the country, Abdel Fattah El Sisi, may have been elected, but observers have never ceased questioning the legitimacy of those elections, nor the bloody circumstances of his rise to power. As the Sisi government stumbles from one crisis to the next, it has become increasingly violent toward its critics, the vast majority of whom propose nothing more than civic, pragmatic solutions to the country’s most vexing problems. Their non-violent, civic engagement has been met with arbitrary arrests and incarceration, disappearances and torture. Free speech and expression are a thing of the past, and violations of the right to organize, travel and conduct research are rife. Today, Egypt has become a vast penal colony.

As taxpayers, we morally object to the idea that our money goes to prop up an autocratic and violent regime in Cairo. We urge your administration to turn away from the old policies that brought us here, and embark on a new course toward peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of Egypt. We call on you to suspend military aid to Egypt’s military rulers until you have time to undertake a comprehensive review of our policy toward the country.

Sincerely,

1.     Khaled Abou El Fadl (UCLA)

2.     Fida Adely (Georgetown University)

3.     Anthony Alessandrini (CUNY)

4.     Samer Mahdy Ali (University of Michigan)

5.     Lori Allen (SOAS, University of London)

6.     Nabil Al-Takriti (University of Mary Washington)

7.     Noha Arafa (National Lawyers Guild)

8.     Andrew Arato (New School)

9.     Walter Armbrust (University of Oxford)

10.  Mona Atia (George Washington University)

11.  Aslı Bâli (UCLA School of Law)

12.  Beth Baron (City University of New York)

13.  Lydia Bassaly (Columbia University)

14.  Moustafa Bayoumi (Brooklyn College, CUNY)

15.  Joel Beinin (Stanford University)

16.  Amahl Bishara (Tufts University)

17.  Audrey Bomse (National Lawyers Guild)

18.  Marilyn Booth (University of Oxford)

19.  Laurie A. Brand (University of Southern California)

20.  Michaelle L. Browers (Wake Forest University)

21.  Jonathan Brown (Georgetown University)

22.  Jason Brownlee (University of Texas at Austin)

23.  Rosie Bsheer (Yale University)

24.  Charles E. Butterworth (University of Maryland)

25.  Sheila Carapico (University of Richmond)

26.  Noam Chomsky (MIT)

27.  Elliott Colla (Georgetown University)

28.  Don Conway-Long (Webster University)

29.  Rochelle Davis (Georgetown University)

30.  Lara Deeb (Scripps College)

31.  Andrea Dessì (London School of Economics)

32.  Emily Drumsta (UC Berkeley)

33.  Mona El-Ghobashy (Independent scholar)

34.  Mohamad Elmasry (University of North Alabama)

35.  Omnia El Shakry (University of California, Davis)

36.  John Esposito (Georgetown University)

37.  Ilana Feldman (George Washington University)

38.  Alexa Firat (Temple University)

39.  James Gelvin (UCLA)

40.  Alan Gilbert (University of Denver)

41.  Ellis J. Goldberg (University of Washington)

42.  Joel Gordon (University of Arkansas)

43.  Elaine C. Hagopian (Simmons College)

44.  Sondra Hale (UCLA)

45.  Hanan Hammad (Texas Christian University)

46.  Ian M. Hartshorn (University of Nevada, Reno)

47.  Nader Hashemi (University of Denver)

48.  Jane Hathaway (Ohio State University)

49.  Donald Hindley (Brandeis University)

50.  Elizabeth M. Holt (Bard College)

51.  Deena R. Hurwitz (American University)

52.  Toby C. Jones (Rutgers University)

53.  Lorenzo Kamel (Harvard University)

54.  Arang Keshavarzian (NYU)

55.  Laleh Khalili (SOAS, University of London)

56.  Dina Rizk Khoury (George Washington University)

57.  Laurie King (Georgetown University)

58.  Marwan M. Kraidy (University of Pennsylvania)

59.  Vickie Langohr (College of the Holy Cross)

60.  Mark Andrew Le Vine (UC Irvine)

61.  Darryl Li (Yale)

62.  Zachary Lockman (NYU)

63.  Miriam R. Lowi (The College of New Jersey)

64.  Melani McAlister (George Washington University)

65.  Clea McNeely (University of Tennessee)

66.  Shana Minkin (Sewanee: the University of the South)

67.  Timothy Mitchell (Columbia University)

68.  Pete W. Moore (Case Western Reserve University)

69.  Amir Moosavi (NYU)

70.  Norma Claire Moruzzi (University of Illinois at Chicago)

71.  Tamir Moustafa (Simon Fraser University)

72.  Bruce D. Nestor (National Lawyers Guild)

73.  Roger Owen (Harvard University)

74.  Sumita Pahwa (Scripps College)

75.  Lisa A. Pollard (University of North Carolina at Wilmington)

76.  Sara Pursley (Princeton University)

77.  Noha Radwan (UC Davis)

78.  Aziz Rana (Cornell University)

79.  Kamran Rastegar (Tufts University)

80.  Sarah Roche-Mahdi (Independent Scholar)

81.  Mona Russell (East Carolina University)

82.  Atef Said (University of Illinois in Chicago)

83.  Christa Salamandra (CUNY)

84.  Hesham Sallam (Stanford University)

85.  Stuart Schaar (Brooklyn College CUNY)

86.  Aaron Schneider (University of Denver)

87.  Jillian Schwedler (Hunter College & The Graduate Center, CUNY)

88.  Samer Shehata (University of Oklahoma)

89.  Paul Sedra (Simon Fraser University)

90.  Omar Shakir (Center for Constitutional Rights)

91.  Stephen Sheehi (College of William and Mary)

92.  Tamara Sonn (Georgetown University)

93.  Josh Stacher (Kent State University)

94.  Gregory Starrett (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)

95.  Rebecca L. Stein (Duke University)

96.  Christopher Stone (Hunter College, CUNY)

97.  Ted Swedenburg (University of Arkansas)

98.  Elizabeth F. Thompson (University of Virginia)

99.  Levi Thompson (UCLA)

100.  Chris Toensing (MERIP)

101.  Judith Tucker (Georgetown University)

102.  John Voll (Georgetown University)

103.  Jeremy Walton (The Max Planck Institute)

104.  Lisa Wedeen (University of Chicago)

105.  Max D. Weiss (Princeton University)

106.  Mark R. Westmoreland (Leiden University)

107.  Jessica Winegar (Northwestern University)

108.  John Womack, Jr. (Harvard University)
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Feb 16, 2011 Lebanon
Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412