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ANALYSIS: From the guy who called it ‘terrorism’ when College Republicans had a display stating ‘I Love Undocumented Firearms’ and ‘ICE ICE Baby’
A University of California Merced professor of history and critical race and ethnic studies recently called for the “dezionization” of the UC system.
Sean Malloy, who according to his faculty page researches “colonialism, war, white supremacy, and the critical study of Zionism,” writes in the Ethnic Studies Council at UC Substack that Zionism is a “driving force behind many of the external and internal threats to the UC and its faculty, staff, and students.”
“Dezionization entails not only ending the UC’s complicity in the genocidal actions of the Israeli state (which would include divestment and the end of formal research and teaching collaborations with Israeli-linked entities), but also confronting the role of Zionist organizations, donors, Regents, and administrators in repression targeted at members of the university community,” Malloy says.
The professor links to the UC People’s Tribunal for Palestine page, which notes tribunals are “forums of justice set up by social justice movements and organizations to charge those in power with crimes against humanity […] an opportunity to speak truth to power—in ways that are determined by the people.”
In U. California’s case, “the people charge the UC Regents, UC President Michael Drake, and Governor Gavin Newsom with complicity in genocide and ongoing Nakba” (Nakba being the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation).
The tribunal also accuses Israel of “unceasing genocide” against the Palestinians, and rips UC leaders for “normaliz[ing] the Israeli state and defend[ing] Zionism while restricting speech and employing militarized police power.”
In his piece, Malloy repeatedly, and incorrectly, uses the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza; ironically, one of his solutions for “dezionization” is to “formally reject the [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism” (see here).
Malloy suggests a tribunal comprised of “a university-wide group of students, staff, and faculty” (dubbed the University Committee on Dezionization) as a “better path forward” in eliminating Zionism from the UC system.
The task of this group […] would be to extensively document the University’s past complicity with the crimes of the Israeli state as well as its internal repression of anti-Zionist dissidents and then to formulate appropriate remedies and forms of accountability.
In doing so, it should consult directly and meaningfully with those most affected, including those in Palestine. One possibility would be to include representatives from Palestinian universities who could provide recommendations on how UC might at least partially atone for its past complicity with the destruction of those universities and the murder of their students, faculty, and staff.
Malloy says UC “must also account” for its “past complicity and the individual and structural consequences” of its relationship with “both the state of Israel and Zionist organizations complicit” in the Palestinian “genocide.”
Part of this “accounting” includes restoring (and funding) the group Students for Justice in Palestine and programs such as Palestine studies.
When it comes to the UC Regents, administrators, “and others within the UC system whose active collaboration with Zionism has indirectly facilitated the genocide in Gaza and directly contributed to the repression of students, staff, and faculty here at the UC,” Malloy looks to history:
There have been a wide variety of approaches to this question, ranging from the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II to the Reconstruction of the American South after the Civil War and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established in post-Apartheid South Africa. None of these models are exact fits for dezionization at the UC and while historians have debated them extensively, none can really be viewed as truly successful in achieving their stated aims.
Eight years ago, Malloy was apoplectic about a “threatening” display put up by the UC Merced College Republicans that included the phrases “I Love Undocumented Firearms” and “ICE ICE Baby.”
Malloy was “disgusted that some of [UC Merced] students would advocate for the government-sponsored ethnic cleansing of their fellow students,” and ripped the university for standing for the First Amendment in the face of such “terrorism.”
Read Malloy’s full Substack article.
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