Stop attacks on New Paltz deputy mayor
New Paltz Women in Black support deputy mayor Alexandria Wojcik and reject attacks on her for reposting statements from the SUNY student encampment about Zionism.
Zionism is a 19th-century philosophy from the Age of Colonialism, offering a Jewish homeland at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians who already had a thriving civilization in that region. Palestine was NEVER a land without people for people without a land. Early Zionists — and even today’s Zionist leaders — were quite frank about the need to remove the native population from the land in order to secure it for Jews only.
Just as Netanyahu and his government and the “extremist” Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and the Israeli army with its snipers and bulldozers, are forcing Palestinians off their land every day — killing them, burning their homes, uprooting their olive trees, scattering their flocks — in just that way Israel is trying to destroy as much Palestinian life and culture as possible in its war on Gaza. Israel has not just aimed at Hamas fighters; it has destroyed every school and university in Gaza, every hospital and clinic, every library, theater and community center. Every market. And 60 percent of the homes.
This is why many, many Jews around the world and in the United States — and in New Paltz — have stood up and said: “NO! These war crimes will not be committed in my name as a Jew! Genocide is not a Jewish value! A Palestinian life is just as valuable as a Jewish life! And this is what the SUNY students were saying, Jews and non-Jews, in their encampment last month.
So Alexandra has nothing to apologize for. Nothing in her posts, nor in the posts of student activists, was an attack on Jews. We honor her. May she sail on to preside over many, many more spectacular gay pride parades in years to come.
Naomi Allen, on behalf of New Paltz Women in Black for Peace and Justice
P.S. It’s just plain racism that fears a word because it’s in Arabic. “Intifada” simply means “uprising.”