On “USM should not cut ties with defense contractors to preserve research, student development”
The author of this op-ed would have us accept that “what the [weapons manufacturing] companies do for the [the University of Maryland’s] research and student projects” is worth it, and that student conversations about calls for divestment from these companies should not “focus on how perpetrators of violence use these manufacturers’ weapons”.
As students of conscience, we must reject the idea that student education and university research should be paid for using the blood of the Palestinians who Israel has brutally killed in the past year.
The official death toll of direct deaths in Gaza has been reported as 40,000. However, a recent letter in The Lancet’s correspondence section stated that “applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death … it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”
This high estimate includes deaths due to food, water, and medical shortages as well as the spread of diseases and destruction of healthcare infrastructure. The destruction of this infrastructure has hindered the Gaza health ministry’s ability to count the number of dead.
The so-called “defense” companies associated with this university are responsible for horrific massacres such as the Israeli bombing of Gaza’s Al-Tabin school using at least one American-made GBU-39 small-diameter bomb, which killed more than 93 people, including 11 children.
The expectation that these military contractors will suddenly become conscious of the human rights violations they facilitate is naive at best, and petitioning the United States government to stop weapons deals with countries engaged in human rights abuses is ignorant of the imperialist interests of the U.S. government and its longstanding relationship with Israel.
The very core mission of these companies is to generate profit, regardless of the moral or humanitarian consequences. The only solution that can absolve us of complicity in the massacre of innocent people is to divest our university endowment from these companies and cut ties with these contractors. This will firmly communicate that we, as students, reject any complicity in these companies’ egregious activities.
UMD Students for Justice in Palestine
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