Israel has obliterated every single university in Gaza. Palestinian academics have been targeted, killed and kidnapped by Israeli forces in an attempt to wipe out Palestinian society that human rights groups have said constitutes “scholasticide.” These crimes have prevented 625,000 Gazan students from attending school. United Nations schools have provided shelter for many Palestinians displaced by Israel’s assault, but these schools have been repeatedly bombed and attacked by Israeli forces. The Israeli army has also become notorious for systematically targeting Palestinian school children, and 44 out of 53 American doctors who treated children in Gaza during the past year saw Palestinian children with sniper wounds to their head or chest.
Now, for over a year, the world has witnessed Israel’s horrific genocide in Palestine. Israel’s assault on Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon has killed tens of thousands of people — though the real toll is likely far higher. Although Tufts’ administration has yet to heed calls from the Tufts Community Union Senate to divest from Israeli companies, each of us holds the power to make small changes that take a stand against genocide. This Editorial Board commits to the following and urges our peers within and outside of the Daily to do the same.
Instead of buying Sabra hummus snack packs from the Mayer Campus Center, Kindlevan Café or SMFA Café, we should let them pile up on the shelves — Sabra’s parent company, the Strauss Group, provides financial support to the Israeli army. This extends to companies outside campus that have materially supported Israel. We should boycott McDonald’s because its former Israeli franchise provided free meals to Israeli soldiers last year. By not purchasing these products, we can not only chip away at the bottom line of war crimes but also send a message as students that we do not support this genocide or anyone who funds it.
Tufts students who are in the position to do so should also refuse to take jobs and internships at companies that are the most directly complicit in Israel’s scholasticide. These include Hewlett-Packard, whose technologies use biometric data to separate Israelis and Palestinians at checkpoints that cement Israeli apartheid, and Elbit Systems, which provides weapons to the Israeli army. Other companies for students to avoid are RTX (formerly Raytheon), L3Harris and Boeing, whose weapons are used by the Israeli military. As students, we can refuse to collaborate with companies complicit in the destruction of Gaza’s education system.
Palestinian civil society has asked people around the world to participate in a targeted campaign to boycott companies that support the Israeli military. These types of boycotts and sanctions helped cripple the apartheid South African regime in the 1980s, and now, we can collectively work around the institutional inaction that has allowed Israel to commit human rights violations.
Tufts University teaches students to put a light on the hill and to be active in social justice movements. Tufts students should fulfill this mission by refusing to buy products complicit in Israel’s actions. Join the Editorial Board in refusing to buy products complicit in scholasticide.
