We, Jewish researchers, demand
@MIT
put an end to all research contracts sponsored by the Ministry of Defense of Israel. We want our research to benefit humanity not destroy it. Read the full press release here:
This you? The former naval officer who fought in Gaza who told Fox News he was "truly afraid" to walk on campus due to anti-Israel protests, claiming "I'm terrified"??
Breaking: The students and workers of
#MIT
establish the Scientists Against Genocide Encampment on MIT’s Kresge Lawn
“MIT has received OVER $11 MILLION in research funding from the Ministry of Defense of Israel since 2015…. We will NOT REST until MIT cuts research ties with the
Israeli nationalists love to pretend to be scared of us to mainstream media and
@MIT
admin, then casually stroll into our encampment and pull this crap
In just 48 hours, over 500
@MIT_alumni
signed a letter withholding contributions until
@MIT
makes meaningful progress toward divesting from the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
@MIT
, listen to your students, staff, faculty, and alumni!
MIT would rather fence us in than cut ties to the Israeli Defense Ministry. They can put up fences but they cannot shut down the movement. We are here until
@MIT
divests from genocide, apartheid, and occupation of Palestine!
🚨 🚨 PRESS RELEASE!
@MIT
suspends, evicts, and arrests their own students engaging in non-violent, peaceful protest against MIT’s continued ties to Israeli military:
They call us antisemitic for standing against genocide. When that doesn't work, they lie, and lie again. We won't let these disgusting lies deter us. Disclose, Divest, Drop charges!
I'm a Jew, a faculty member at northeastern, and I visited the Gaza solidarity camp each day. Many student protesters there were also Jews. Northeastern admin is justifying arresting their own students by claiming they were chanting "kill the Jews," which is a blatant lie.
Week two of the Scientists Against Genocide Encampment. We're here and will remain here until
@MIT
divests from research projects for the Israeli Ministry of Defense
Today at 4 AM, more than 200 armed riot police came to dismantle and destroy our protest encampment, and continued to arrest
@MIT
students and workers engaging in peaceful protest.
We have been here since the first day of the encampment! You're welcome to come back and join us in telling
@MIT
to divest from research projects for the IDF 🙂
Right now, Jews and Israelis have come into the anti-Israel encampment at
@MIT
. We brought some food including fresh Israeli watermelon to share with everyone and are singing songs of peace! ✌️ ☮️ 🕊️
MIT wants you to believe that it values its Jewish students, but their actions show that they are only willing to support those who don’t criticize Israel.
Read the full open letter at
@wbz
You're being antisemitic by using the actions of a subset of Jews to represent all of us. Jews are a large part of the pro-Palestine movement and always have been. Never again means never again for anyone.
Pesach sameach! If you're affiliated with MIT, join us at the encampment on the Kresge lawn for Passover Seder tomorrow, Tuesday April 23, at 5pm! Dress warm!
We urge
@MIT
administration to come to the table in good faith. Another world is possible. Research freedom shouldn't mean creating weapons of repression and death. As you keep saying, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
@mit_caa
@mitj4c
The MIT administration is pretending they can’t read. The students have told you what their intentions are and none of them are violent.
It is so sad to see educators treat young people who are leading with their hearts with such disdain.
Good morning! MIT community: join us for Seder tonight starting at 5pm on Kresge lawn encampment. We'll have services, dinner, and fun. Hope to see you here. Pesach semeach💕
Pesach sameach! If you're affiliated with MIT, join us at the encampment on the Kresge lawn for Passover Seder tomorrow, Tuesday April 23, at 5pm! Dress warm!
and a revolting abuse of
@MIT
’s mission. What purpose do swarm weapons, created in the Aero/Astro department and paid for by Israel, serve if not for the targeting of Palestinians? How can this research be “for the betterment of humankind”?
We are delighted to welcome
@PeterBeinart
to MIT on 4/18 at 6:00PM for a conversation on the ongoing assault on and Israeli occupation of Gaza, Jewish identity, & the history of Jewish organizing toward Palestinian freedom.
There will be food! RSVP here:
Stop perpetuating the false narrative that this is a Jewish vs Palestinian/Arab/Muslim issue. It’s an issue of supporting/opposing a govt that’s actively committing genocide and is guilty of countless violations of international human rights law in Palestine & the broader region.
As we disrupt business as usual on university campuses around the US, we have to remember who we’re fighting for. You can make a tangible impact. Help Bashar and his family escape the genocide. Share this post and donate here:
Read our new statement in The Tech, On Jewish Activism, Safety, and Recent Events at MIT! We welcome anyone in the MIT community who may be questioning how to interpret or respond to events on campus, to reach out to us to start a conversation.
As Jewish MIT students, staff, & faculty, we find the involvement of the Israeli government—a government that is actively committing genocide and starving hundreds of thousands of children and adults—in our school’s research to be an abhorrent exploitation of “academic freedom”
This Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, MIT and UPenn will be called to testify in front of Congress to “answer for [the] mishandling” of “countless examples of antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses.” We say criticism of the Israeli government isn't antisemitic.
(1/10)
63.7% of
@MIT
's undergraduates voted to divest. 70.5% of MIT's graduates voted to divest. Students don't want their research used for genocide!!! MIT why aren't you listening?!
@MIT
calls its relationship w/Israel “vibrant” but develops swarm weapons tech for IDF. We say: a relationship that produces weapons of war is rotten to its core. Want vibrant? Look at our diverse community celebrating Passover while working together toward collective liberation.
@MIT
.
@MIT
calls being funded by Israel's Ministry of Defense to develop swarm weapons "academic freedom." MIT, what do you say? How many kids did you kill today?
.
@MIT
would rather spend hundreds of thousands on staff overtime than divest from a fraction of a percent of their research budget in making war weapons to kill Gaza's children 3/?
"As a Palestinian refugee, born and raised in the Gaza Strip, what is happening right now is not an abstract concept. It is not a theory of decolonization & dismantling system of oppression. It is tied to everything I have." A Palestinian student's account
Join us for song and discussion Thursday 11/30 at 12:30pm to demand an end to the genocide! Jews and non-jews welcome!
Sign up at if you're interested in joining our organizing!
You refer to a foreign consulate-sponsored rally as being "in support of our Israeli and Jewish students"—the very students who said we "support terrorists" & made countless antisemitic attacks against us b/c we dare call out Israel. Are we not your Israeli & Jewish students too?
When conservative Christian congresspeople claim they're speaking on behalf of Jewish people, we remind them that it's only their opinion while we have many.
We hope that you join us in calling MIT leadership to do what it easily did, just days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: to immediately cut research ties and divest from a government committing historic injustice upon a people. MIT can, and must, do better.
You frame the encampment as a magnet for trouble, placing responsibility for any potential external violence or escalation on us. If MIT is serious about protecting its students from trouble, it should be more engaged toward meeting our demands.
Your statement completely ignores the fact that the encampment exists because MIT refuses to divest from the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
To claim that the encampment is the one creating an unsafe campus for anyone on MIT campus is absurd: MIT is making its Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and yes, even Jewish students less safe because of its insistence in taking the money of a genocidal government.
We are the MIT Scientists Against Genocide activists, a broad collective of student organizations, asking MIT to end all research contracts sponsored or funded by the Israeli Ministry of Defense. 2/?
After many meetings w/you, Pres Kornbluth, where you sympathized with our cause and our Jewish experiences, we are distraught that you and your comms dept have erased pro-Palestinian Jewish presence and dismissed the encampment as a "situation" w/no apparent cause or goal.
great to see you
@MikeConnollyMA
! Thanks for standing up against the indiscriminate bombing, starvation, and dehumanization of the millions of people in Gaza. And thanks for chatting with
@mitj4c
Spending time in conversation today here at the Scientists Against Genocide Encampment on MIT’s campus. I encourage President Kornbluth to join the call for a ceasefire, to address the students’ demands, and to allow this peaceful occupation to continue for as long as necessary.
@MIT
The
@MIT
administration wants the world to believe that we are campaigning against the interests of Jewish students. That this is an issue of Jews versus Palestinians, Muslims, or Arabs. This is a lie. This lie causes unnecessary division and endangers us more. 10/?
@MIT
The encampment is a symbol of our movement, and the movement cannot and will not be arrested. As a collective of students, workers, faculty and staff across MIT, our organizing capacity remains strong to continue to advocate for our reasonable and moral demands. 9/?
Our group was featured in a Teen Vogue article by Hadas Thier! Read more about why it is dangerous to conflate antisemitism and antizionism, and what politicians and university administrators should or shouldn’t do to actually make Jews and other minorities safer
Do American Colleges Have an Antisemitism Problem?
Yes, but the diagnosis and medicine on offer may be worse than the disease.
My latest for
@TeenVogue
@MIT
While Israel bombs, tortures, and starves children and adults to death,
@MIT
tells the world that what we are asking for is impossible, citing the "academic freedom" of professors to decide where they take research funding from. 12/?
While MIT remains unwilling to cut research funding that amounts to just 0.03% of its total research budget, we have personally bore witness to how much money MIT is willing to spend freely on militarizing its own campus to target and surveil its own students. 3/?
@MIT
@still_francesca
.
@MIT
has an opportunity to lead by example: stop brutalizing your students. Show the world that you stand by your own mission to work "for the betterment of humankind." End all research contracts sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Defense. 24/24
@MIT
A large group of Jewish students, representing
@mitj4c
, and more Jewish staff, faculty, & alumni have been an integral part of this protest from the beginning. Our Jewish values guide us to act, because we know that we are only safe if our Palestinian siblings are safe. 11/?
@MIT
The MIT President and administration would have you believe that we're not representative of the student body. Over 70% of grad student-workers and >60% undergrads have voted for
@MIT
to get out of the business of genocide. 70+ faculty and 900+ alumni support our demands. 8/?
@MIT
@still_francesca
Instead of divesting from Israel’s genocide, dropping research funds that are 0.03% of total
@MIT
research funding/0.2% defense funding, the admin has chosen to pay for countless staff and police officers to surveil, intimidate, harass, arrest, and brutalize its students. 13/?
As we light our menorahs, we observe the dual lessons of Hannukah: a history of struggle against the violence of occupation, and a dedication to hope for a better future. This is why we act
"Pro-Israeli activists on campus have a crybullyism problem: faced with opposition to their nationalism and militarism, they respond violently then turn around and claim 'oppression of Jewish voices.'"
@MIT
@still_francesca
By providing material and symbolic support to the Israeli military,
@MIT
is violating the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions, the Apartheid Convention, and federal bans on providing material support to abusive militaries and state sponsors of terrorism. 21/?
@MIT
@still_francesca
And yet. MIT overtly prefers to arrest pro-peace students rather than enact disciplinary action on pro-war student groups and professors, who have intimidated, harassed, doxxed us, who have blasted genocidal songs on campus calling for Palestinians to be "shot like rats." 17/?
@MIT
There are students and faculty on campus that disagree with our criticism of the Israeli military and government, but our fight is not with them. Our fight is against the continuation of unethical research and development happening between MIT and Israel’s military. 7/?
We are MIT Jews for Ceasefire, a Jewish collective at MIT calling for a ceasefire and an end to Israeli occupation. Last week, we raised our voices in song to call for lasting peace in Palestine.
At MIT? Join us: (1/3)
@MIT
@still_francesca
We keep us safe, but the school has shown us time and again that it puts the interests of a foreign government above the interests of MIT students.
@MIT
, there are 40,000 people dead, and you’re arresting us instead! 15/?
Despite 2 weeks of negotiations that we approached in good faith,
@MIT
administrators have decided to respond to us with physical assault. Just one day earlier, the admin suspended over 20 students and sent them eviction notices, revoking student housing and access to food. 4/?
"Every McCarthyist movement seems dire at the moment, only later recognized as a disgrace. This moment should be seen for what it is: a weaponization of antisemitism to undermine pro-Palestine organizing, suppress free speech, delegitimize DEI initiatives, and gut labor rights."
@MIT
@still_francesca
This is done for the sake of "student safety." The only thing making us materially unsafe is the intense police state that
@MIT
admin has constructed. The only physical violence that we've experienced since the erection of the encampment is from the police invited to it. 14/?
@MIT
History will remember today, and history will vindicate the students and workers who spoke truth to power, just as it has for the American invasion of Vietnam and MIT’s investment in South African apartheid. 5/?
@MIT
@still_francesca
Our governments and institutions have manifestly failed to hold themselves accountable to these obligations. It thus falls to students of conscience in the anti-war, anti-apartheid movement to pressure institutions through peaceful but disruptive acts of civil disobedience. 22/?
@MIT
MIT’s administration claims that these historic parallels cannot be drawn, and that our movement is simply against another group of students on campus. This is a transparent attempt at deflection of responsibility by President Kornbluth and the
@MIT
administration. 6/?
@MIT
@still_francesca
Our encampment was a peaceful, beautiful testament to the diverse community of MIT. We’ve held Shabbats and Seder. We have danced, gardened, written poetry, made art together. We have provided food security and community for students in a way that
@MIT
never did for us. 16/?
@MIT
@still_francesca
Israeli apartheid has become horrifyingly clear in the laws of Israel that restrict Palestinian rights to internal movement, marriage, habeas corpus, immigration, work, housing, free speech, voting, and water. 20/?
Today at 4 AM, more than 200 armed riot police came to dismantle and destroy our protest encampment, and continued to arrest MIT students and workers engaging in peaceful protest. 4/?
@MIT
@still_francesca
We call on
@MIT
to stop using our intellectual power to develop weapons and tools for the Israeli government in violation of international law. The International Court of Justice ruled over three months ago that Israel's war on Gaza plausibly constitutes an act of genocide. 18/?
@MIT
@still_francesca
Meanwhile, the international human rights community, including Israel's veteran human rights groups, have characterized Israel’s laws and institutions as enshrining a regime of apartheid–the domination of one group over another on the basis of a racial or ethnic identity. 19/?
"We are beyond alarmed that MIT IA members don't seem to care about the harm they are unleashing on the institution and the country by actively collaborating with politicians who employ the highly antisemitic "Great Replacement Theory" in their arguments against immigrants."
As we disrupt business as usual on university campuses around the US, we have to remember who we’re fighting for. You can make a tangible impact. Help Bashar and his family escape the genocide. Share this post and donate here:
Join us TOMORROW, 12/5, at 10AM in DC as we share our perspectives as progressive Jewish students on campus and tell Congress “Not In Our Name”. TENTATIVE location is Spirit of Justice Park, south of the Rayburn House Office Building. Be on the look out for live updates tomorrow!
"We urge you to avoid falling prey to bad-faith arguments by pro-Israel students and faculty who publicly align with politicians & orgs whose stated goals are the dismantling of DEI programs, degradation of education, and undermining of the labor movement."
"How can MIT IA fight for all Jews while collaborating w/racist & antisemitic politicians? Immigrant Jews while siding w/anti-immigration politicians? Queer Jews while allying w/homophobic politicians, Poor, disabled Jews while leaning on anti-labor & healthcare politicians?"
to make our challenge, we only need 100 people donating $100
(Started this week at 17K hoping to get to 27K by the end of it.)
Will you be one of them? how about your friends?