Updated 22/10/23 - This letter was drafted by and for students, but at the request of many staff and alumni members of the LSHTM community, we are making it available for all to sign.
We, the staff, students and alumni at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), are deeply disappointed at the response of our school with regards to the active ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian People. While we were unequivocal in our response to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, our school leadership has chosen a “both sides” approach with the ongoing genocide and displacement of Palestinians.
There are situations in which nuance is warranted and encouraged, but this cannot be one of them. International organisations such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations, Doctors Without Borders have all spoken out publicly regarding the current operation that Israel has been running in Gaza. As of this updated letter, over 6,500 Palestinians have been killed, approximately 1,500 of them children, 15,000 Palestinians have been injured, 1,000 Palestinians have been missing, and 1,100,000 Palestinians have been displaced. It is now estimated that Israel has killed an average of 300 Palestinians per day.
At the start of each academic year, students are given more than one talk about decolonizing our curriculum and staff have been asked many times over the past few years to decolonise their curriculums and engage with the ‘decolonising the curriculum toolkit’ produced by LSHTM. Decolonisation is not abstract or theoretical. It is an active process that allows for the colonised to be given a voice and rid itself of its colonial status. Israel is an active occupier force of both Gaza and the West Bank, and ignoring this power dynamic by referring to what is going on as a “war” is a gross oversimplification. One side has an army backed by the world’s “superpowers”– a title they were given by ways of their own colonial histories. The other side, no army, no international backing, no voice.
Right now, we are being sold a story of terrorists versus Israel with the clock starting on October 7th, 2023. This story centers Hamas and conflates them with Palestinians. This story strips the context of the last 75 years. Most importantly, this story silences those who wish to bring to light a lot of the atrocities also happening in Palestine while disproportionately magnifying Israeli voices. This is not to discount Israeli voices— they are important. They have lost sisters, brothers, children, wives, husbands, friends. However, this silencing has dehumanized Palestinians and trained our minds to think of them as not only “less than,” but deserving of collective punishment.
A collective punishment that has resulted in a continuation and exacerbation of trauma for Palestinians. A collective punishment that, if we do not act or stand up against, will likely result in the extermination of Palestinian people. We have already seen 51 families be wiped from the Gazan civilian registry.
Israel has also illegally cut off Gaza’s access to water, electricity, fuel. They have also asked Palestinians to evacuate the Northern portion of Gaza– a move many international organizations have condemned and have urged would cause further loss of life.
The United Nations (UN) has sounded the alarm of active ethnic cleansing, and we have chosen to remain neutral. While there has been loss of innocent life in Israel, which we condemn without hesitation or reservation, there has also been a very systematic, successful, attempt to rid the world of Palestinians. According to the UN, “Israel has already carried out mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the fog of war,...in the name of self-defence, Israel is seeking to justify what would amount to ethnic cleansing. Any continued military operations by Israel have gone well beyond the limits of international law. The international community must stop these egregious violations of international law now, before tragic history is repeated. Time is of the essence.”
We cannot continue to pretend there is not a genocide happening. We must stand in solidarity with our Palestinian neighbours, and we must do so before there are no more Palestinians to stand in solidarity with.
