The State of Israel has been conducting mass genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people since 1948 when the Nakba, or “Catastrophe,” occurred and upwards of 700,000 native Palestinians were expelled from their homes by Zionist militia. Israel has spent the last 75 years oppressing the Palestinian people while taking more and more land from them. Over the past two months, Israel has been consistently carpet bombing the Gaza Strip, with residential homes, schools, hospitals, and churches all mercilessly targeted, all in the false name of fighting terrorism. Currently, the death toll in Gaza has exceeded 100,000 since October 7th.

On account of this, we are petitioning that VCU immediately cease all study-abroad trips to Israel to protest these horrific acts conducted by the Israeli government. Our university is marketed by our unwavering commitment to equity and diversity in the Richmond area, and the university’s ties with Israel contradict this very notion. Not only does it send a message to students – especially our Palestinian students — that the university does not actually care about its values, but the trips to Israel lend support to the country. This makes VCU complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, and it is completely unacceptable. We demand a complete stop to these trips. We refuse to allow our university to normalize connections with an apartheid state wholly responsible for the displacement, ethnic cleansing, and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.