丁香园AV

The undersigned members of the School of Communication at 丁香园AV stand with our colleagues and comrades in Palestine, across Canada and globally, and with Israelis and Jews demanding 鈥渘ot in our name,鈥� to call for an immediate end to the siege, occupation, and continuous atrocities being committed in the Gaza strip and West Bank, fueled by a rhetoric of genocide. We demand an immediate end to the 17-year siege of Gaza and the dismantling of the decades-long Israeli apartheid system. Even as we condemn the brutal and inhumane killings of Israelis and Palestinians alike, we are very encouraged by the remarkable movement of anti-apartheid and anti-genocide protests sweeping the world and bringing together Jews, Palestinians, and peoples of all backgrounds.

As scholars and academics specializing in communication and media studies, we are particularly alarmed with the ways in which mainstream, corporate, and public media have disproportionately silenced Palestinian voices and critics of Israel鈥檚 crimes through gate-keeping, censorship, militarization, fearmongering, and the justification of further Israeli state violence. Despite decades of research on critical media and cultural studies, we are disappointed to see Canadian media continue to reproduce racist, dehumanizing, and discriminatory representations of Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and all those who have participated in this anti-war movement. Communities expressing their grief and opposition to the violence are participating in legally-protected civic rights and should not be the target of demonization and victims of unfounded accusations of antisemitism and terrorism. All of this is particularly disappointing as it contrasts starkly with the way the same media rallied in support of Ukrainians facing a Russian military invasion.

We offer our collective grief and horror at Hamas鈥檚 brutal killing and kidnapping of Israeli civilians. These actions are reprehensible. However, they absolutely do not justify the collective punishment of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. We have learned from genocides committed by the Nazis, Fascists, Balkan militias, Rwandan guerillas, and other abhorrent crimes in contemporary history, that the mediated discourses of dehumanization that reduce civilians to 鈥渁nimals,鈥� 鈥渞ats,鈥� and 鈥渃ockroaches鈥� are used to prime citizens into accepting and cheerleading the mass murder of their adversaries. Today Israel and its allies are doing precisely that. As a community of scholars and public intellectuals, we stand steadfastly in support of Palestinian peoples鈥� justice and liberation. We stand against antisemitism in all of its forms and affirm that it cannot be conflated with criticism of the Israeli state.

We stand with academics, activists, artists, and communities being harassed and criminalized for their support of Palestinian liberation. In the same way that we recognize the importance of truth and reconciliation as a foundation for decolonization on the lands on which we live, we advocate for the end of settler colonialism in Palestine. And finally, we see how the weight of harm, harassment, and criminalization is borne unequally by our Palestinian, Indigenous, Muslim, Black and racialized colleagues, and stand in support of all marginalized communities.

For additional resources and other relevant statements, please see the following links: Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Statement on Palestine and Israel, the largest and most respected international interdisciplinary academic association focused on the study and research of the region:

https://mesana.org/advocacy/letters-from-the-board/2023/10/16/mesa-board- statement-on-palestine-and-israel

Statement, United National Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-briefing-notes/2023/10/latest- occupied-palestinian-territoryisrael 

 

Signed by:

Enda Brophy, Associate Professor, School of Communication

Milena Droumeva, Associate Professor, School of Communication

Alberto Toscano, Term Research Associate Professor, School of Communication

Sun-ha Hong, Assistant Professor, School of Communication

Victoria E. Thomas, Assistant Professor, School of Communication

Daniel Ahadi, Senior Lecturer, School of Communication

Frederik Lesage, Associate Professor, School of Communication

Siyuan Yin, Assistant Professor, School of Communication

Cait McKinney, Assistant Professor, School of Communication

Adel Iskandar, Associate Professor, School of Communication

Svitlana Matviyenko, Associate Professor, School of Communication

Stephanie Dick, Assistant Professor, School of Communication

Stuart Poyntz, Professor, School of Communication  

Zo毛 Druick, Professor, School of Communication

Ahmed Al-Rawi, Associate Professor, School of Communication

Karrmen Crey, Associate Professor, School of Communication

Kirsten Emiko McAllister, Professor, School of Communication

Nawal Musleh-Motut, Term Lecturer, School of Communication

Brenda Baldwin, Director's Assistant, School of Communication

Byron Hauck, Sessional Instructor, School of Communication

Benjamin Anderson, Lecturer, School of Communication

Christopher Jeschelnik, Lecturer, School of Communication

Dal Yong Jin, Professor, School of Communication

Peter White, Professor, School of Communication 

Davina Bhandar, Adjunct Professor, School of Communication

Hannah Holtzclaw, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Mia Chi Vu, MA Student, School of Communication

Michelle Phan, PhD Student, School of Communication

Jiaqi Wen, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Rowan Melling, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Anthony Burton, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Maria Sommers, MA Student, School of Communication

Ben Scholl, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Laya Behbahani, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Dongwook Song, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Mingmin Gu, PhD student, School of Communication

Alonso Melgar, MA Student, School of Communication

Ryland Shaw, MA Student, School of Communication

Yameena Zaidi, MA Student, School of Communication 

Xiaoxing Zhang, PhD Candidate, School of Communication 

Xiaosu Li, PhD Student, School of Communication

Tahmina Inoyatova, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Alison Tedford Seaweed, MA Student, School of Communication

Sadia Nasrin, MA Student, School of Communication 

Kayla Hilstob, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Kelvin Gawley, MA Student, School of Communication

Jimena Abreu Fernandez, MA Candidate, School of Communication 

Omri Haiven, MA Student, School of Communication 

Hoornaz Keshavarzian, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Ekaterina Letunovskaya, MA Student, School of Communication

Kayli Jamieson, MA Student, School of Communication

Sarah Christina Ganzon, Assistant Professor, School of Communication

Adjua Akinwumi, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

Natalie Dusek, MA Candidate, School of Communication

D. W. Kamish, PhD Candidate, School of Communication

C Icart, PhD Student, School of Communication

Jason Congdon, Graduate Programs Coordinator, School of Communication

Jas Morgan, Assistant Professor, School of Communication

Maliha Siddiqi, PhD Student, School of Communication

This statement was endorsed by the School鈥檚 Graduate Student Caucus on December 8, 2023