Pro-Palestinian American academics are pressing a US college that has invited Joe Biden as its 2024 commencement speaker to rescind its invitation as means of objecting to the president’s role in enabling the Israeli regime’s ongoing war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.
The United States has been providing the regime with maximal military and intelligence support since October 7, when the latter unleashed the war. Washington has also vetoed several UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in the brutal military onslaught that, by Wednesday, had killed more than 34,100 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Throughout the US, the academics have been banding together under the banner Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) in support of the war-hit Palestinians.
Most recently, the FSJP’s Georgia chapter called on Morehouse College in Atlanta to call off the commencement speech in protest at the US president’s contribution to the war.
"Any college or university that gives its commencement stage to President Biden in this moment is endorsing genocide," the academics said in a statement that was carried by Mondoweiss, an American news website.
“The time is now for Morehouse College to get on the right side of history, rescind the invitation to President Biden, and use its moral authority to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza,” they added.
The undersigned reminded that none of the instances of brutality in the war, including destruction of all of Gaza’s hospitals and universities, “would have been possible without the support and sponsorship of the Biden Administration.”
The statement referred to Biden as “the one person on the planet who has the power to stop an active genocide…[but] has not accepted responsibility for correcting the ills.”
Pro-Palestinian academic activism has grown significantly across the US since the onset of the Washington-backed war.
Protests have gained momentum at American universities, with students raging against the seats of learning’s connection to the Israeli regime and Washington’s all-out support for the genocide.
A large group of demonstrators has established a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" at Columbia University, where hundreds of students have been calling on the university to divest from companies that have ties to the Israeli regime.
As means of trying to confront the rallies, university authorities announced that classes would be held virtually on Monday.
Protests have also spread to other campuses, including MIT, New York University, the University of Michigan, and Yale.
Also on Monday, at least 47 people were arrested at Yale after reportedly refusing requests to disperse.