A tide of violence is once again sweeping Gaza, and as the ceasefire ends, it has never been more dangerous in the United States to speak out in solidarity with Palestinians.

The abduction and attempted deportation of U.S. permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil, who was targeted by the Trump administration for his activism on Palestine and snatched from his Columbia University residence by ICE, have sparked widespread fear. 

This fear is further fueled by ongoing threats to university funding, crackdowns on activists and academics, and the imprisonment and attempted deportation of non-citizens.

It is now clear that universities are willing to fully cooperate with ICE agents and Trump’s national purge. 

As Jewish faculty at Canadian universities, we watch with horror as this repression sweeps across the U.S. in the name of combating antisemitism. And we stand in solidarity with our U.S. colleagues facing this wave of xenophobic attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump is directly attacking universities as houses of knowledge, learning, and truth. 

Though incomparable to the scholasticide in Gaza, academic purges share the same objectives as bombing universities: the destruction of critical thought and scholarly traditions that have held societies to account for centuries, and the erasure of repositories of culture, research, and imagination.

An existential threat

This repression presents an existential threat to the role of the university in our society and the role of the academy in knowledge transmission. 

We fear that if we do not speak out now, it will be too late—and the devastation will become a matter for historians.

Large-scale attacks on higher education like those we are seeing now are characteristic of the early stages of totalitarian regimes. 

When effective, the destabilization of universities separates, atomizes, and isolates researchers, delegitimizes inquiry, and prevents people—especially the young—from assembling freely and sharing ideas. 

Over the last year and a half, we have watched university leadership capitulate to the federal scrutiny and defamation of Palestinian solidarity encampments on campuses like Columbia University. 

That same leadership has sown the seeds of the current wave of repression by refusing to defend the academic freedom of their students or workers. 

Universities have participated in creating a singular “exception” on Palestine that has become the rule, and which will expand endlessly and voraciously until we stop it. 

Historic student movement for Gaza reaches Canada 

When staff are fired and students expelled for expressing solidarity with Palestinians, they often also lose their immigration status, homes, and means of support. This makes them more vulnerable to the system of deportation the Trump regime has promised to expand and unleash. 

At Georgetown University, a visa-holding postdoctoral researcher, Badar Khan Suri, is being detained by federal immigration authorities under the auspices that his “continued presence in the U.S. would threaten foreign policy.” His wife is Palestinian-American, and Suri himself has been doxxed for his support for Palestine, likely leading enforcement to his doorstep. 

Jewish heritage of solidarity

As Jewish faculty, we are saddened and horrified to see such acts justified in the name of protecting Jewish students.

The Trump administration’s eagerness to expel, fire, and deport protestors and dissenters, reminiscent of past state persecutions of Jewish dissenters, has nothing to do with Jewish safety. 

Instead, it’s in line with the antisemitic and ethno-nationalist aims of his administration. 

Trump’s attempt to use Jews to do his dirty work of labelling “enemies of state” can only divide us from our allies, materially harm Jewish students, and fuel more antisemitism. Fascism will never make Jewish people safe. 

This is a time when Jewish people should lock arms with others under fire, as our Jewish heritage of solidarity has taught us.

For over a year and a half, Christian Zionists and pro-Israel lobby groups have falsely and audaciously claimed to speak on behalf of Jewish people in support of the genocide in Gaza. These groups claim any objection to Israel’s actions since the horrific attacks of October 7th, 2023—including from human rights lawyers, international law experts, journalists, and medical workers—are antisemitic. 

Even when we, Jewish intellectuals, express solidarity with Palestinians, we are called ‘antisemites’ ourselves.

We urge all university administrators and state and local officials to resist the pressure from these lobby groups to define antisemitism and anti-Zionism as essentially interchangeable. 

We call on them to resist all unconstitutional directives and to safeguard the academic freedom to criticize the state of Israel.

We urge all people of conscience to loudly oppose the destruction of higher education and to make clear that these actions are intolerable and inconsistent with democratic values.

We stand in solidarity with colleagues, staff, and students whose academic freedom, free speech, and liberty are under attack. 

But most of all, at this moment, we remain steadfast in our solidarity with Palestinian people in the wake of a heart-wrenching and seemingly endless genocide—and with all people seeking freedom from authoritarian regimes.

What are people saying about The Breach?

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