ACT NOW! Prevent University of Florida Faculty Group From Promoting Radical Anti-Israel Propaganda

Please demand that a virulently anti-Israel six-part “study” be canceled immediately! There is no time to waste! 

A University of Florida organization made up of faculty and staff is advertising a six-session anti-Zionist course on campus that characterizes Zionism as intrinsically genocidal and calls on participants to examine the ideology as an “adversary” in the struggle for “Palestinian liberation.”

UF Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine (UF FSJP), which identifies itself as a group of university faculty and staff “organizing for Palestinian liberation,” promoted the program on social media as “Understanding Zionism: A Six-Part Study for the Palestine Movement.”

According to the course description, “Zionist terror forces” drove 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, and the Nakba — the Arabic word for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians in reference to the establishment of the Jewish state — “has never ended.”

The sessions, free of charge to the public, are set to take place between Sept. 14 and Nov. 23 at UF’s Marston Science Library.

Materials advertising the opening session, titled “Origins of Zionism,” say attendees will examine what the organizers describe as Zionism’s “founding myths” and “defining characteristics.” The stated goal includes exploring why “genocide and ethnic cleansing” should not be viewed as deviations from Zionism’s underlying logic.

In particularly stark language, the course materials describe Zionism as “a project that kills children, bombs hospitals, tortures prisoners, occupies land, assassinates journalists,” and assert that it “seeks to destroy the Palestinian people and those who stand with them.”

This inflammatory program must be canceled immediately!

Write to:

Dr. Stuart Bell, President, University of Florida: president@ufl.edu

Joe Glover, Interim Provost: glover@ufl.edu

Chad Tindol, Senior Vice President for Administration: chad.tindol@ufl.edu

Steve Orlando, Interim Vice President for Strategic Communications and Marketing: sfo@ufl.edu

Sample letter:

I am writing to urge the University of Florida to prohibit the six-part “Understanding Zionism” series promoted by UF Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine from being held at Marston Science Library or elsewhere using university facilities.

According to the organizers’ own materials, this is not simply an academic examination of Zionism. The series describes Zionism as an “adversary,” characterizes it as inherently “genocidal and colonial,” and states that the program is intended to expand participants’ engagement in the movement for “Palestinian liberation.”

University facilities and resources should not be used to advance this kind of political activism.

Furthermore, a series promoted by university faculty and staff that portrays Zionism in such inflammatory terms risks creating an increasingly hostile environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students.

Please act immediately — before this series begins.

Sincerely,