LRCFT Resolution on Gaza

WHEREAS, the Los Rios College Federation of Teachers (LRCFT) supports the rights of faculty members and promotes academic freedom and full access to a quality education in the Los Rios Community College District and beyond; and,

 

WHEREAS, LRCFT is part of a broader US and global labor movement that supports educational workers’ rights; and,

 

WHEREAS the Palestinian Trade Unions, including the Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities Professors & Employees, on 16 October 2023, issued an Urgent Call to End All Complicity and Arming of Israel in its current offensive against Gaza in which over 20,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed and two thirds of the population has been displaced; and,

 

WHEREAS Palestinian universities have issued a Unified Call For Justice and Freedom in Palestine on 29 November, 2023, calling for an immediate cease-fire, entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, protection of the civilian population of Gaza, a rejection of ethnic cleansing, and a political solution that ends the settler colonial and apartheid system to achieve a just, comprehensive, and lasting peace based on principles of justice and self-determination; and,

 

WHEREAS, in the first days and weeks of the Israeli bombing campaign, during October 2023, Palestinian universities and schools were targeted, including the bombings of the Islamic University of Gaza, Al-Azhar University, and other universities, along with 219 educational facilities, of which 29 were UN schools where people were sheltering, and more recently, on December 4, 2023, Israeli bombs killed Sufyan Tayeh, president of the Islamic University of Gaza; and,

 

WHEREAS Israeli authorities cut off water, electricity, medicine, and fuel to the entirety of the Gaza Strip, which alongside the bombing of hospitals and internal Gazan water purification sites, has led to an unprecedented humanitarian and health crisis that the World Health Organization warns is a disastrous situation that must be addressed by the world; and,

 

WHEREAS, the New York Times reports on November 25, 2023, that the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the Israeli bombing campaign is extremely high compared to other wars and has “few precedents in this century,” with “… the number of women and children reported killed in Gaza since the Israeli campaign began last month has already started to approach the roughly 12,400 civilians documented to have been killed by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan during nearly 20 years of war…”; and,

 

WHEREAS, The Nation reported on November 17, 2023, that the Israel on Campus Coalition – a little known organization with links to Israeli intelligence – has used student informants to spy on pro-Palestinian campus groups and target student activists in an effort to “crush” them; and, 

 

WHEREAS, UN experts and academic scholars of genocide have pointed to genocidal incitement and genocidal intent emanating from Israeli government leaders and have raised the alarm of an impending genocide in Gaza; and, 

 

WHEREAS, billions of US dollars in funding for this bombing campaign, in addition to political support, are provided from US tax dollars by the US government to Israel; and,

 

WHEREAS, the LRCFT Executive Board in March, 2018 passed a resolution urging the Board of Trustees to ask the state’s two public pension funds, Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and the State Teacher Retirement System (STRS), to divest from corporations that aid in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories, violating both international humanitarian law and international human rights; and, 

 

THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED THAT the LRCFT stands firm in its commitment to protecting academic freedom for all throughout the Los Rios District, which includes the freedom to discuss US funding of Israeli war crimes, ongoing violation of Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in the State of Israel, and both national and international protests of Israel’s killing of large numbers of civilians in Gaza;

 

LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the LRCFT calls on our members, workers throughout the state of California and the nation, and our elected representatives, to:

 

  • Demand an immediate ceasefire and return to negotiations towards an exchange of captives;
  • Insist that the US government live up to its obligations under international law to not only withhold arms and political support from violators of international law, but to prosecute those violators; 
  • Work towards the end of the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territories, equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
  • Value Palestinian and Israeli lives equally.

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the LRCFT executive board publicize this resolution by emailing it to LRCFT members, posting it on the union’s webpage, sharing it with the Sacramento Central Labor Council, and sending it to our Congressional representatives to urge them to support a ceasefire.