Jewish Voice for Peace at Cornell strongly condemns President Donald Trump's newly issued executive order, Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism, and calls on Cornell University to protect international students, staff and faculty whose visa statuses are threatened by the proclamation. This order does not protect Jewish students. Instead, it seeks to silence anti-Zionist speech on campuses and in communities across the United States. With specific reference to campus activities of the last year, the order implies that the protest and divestment movement is inherently harmful to Jewish students. As Jewish students, faculty and alumni actively involved in a cross-national movement, we reject that pro-Palestinian activism is anti-semitism.
The executive order calls for universities to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff.” Under the pretense of "combating anti-Semitism," this executive order targets non-citizen anti-war organizers and activists, furthering a broader anti-immigrant agenda. We refuse to stand by as Jews are used as pawns in this right-wing authoritarian regime. We particularly stand with our friend and ally, graduate student Momodou Taal. As a prominent voice in the pro-Palestine movement at Cornell, Momodou has already been threatened with deportation.
This executive order enacts The Heritage Foundation's "Project Esther" which aims to erase the distinction between Judaism and Zionism. Under this framework, the federal government is charged with dismantling the Palestinian solidarity movement through deportations of non-citizens, censorship of education, protest bans and the dissolution of groups like JVP and Students for Justice in Palestine. With this recent executive order, “Project Esther” has begun its realization in the name of Jewish people, despite there being no evidence of Jewish authors, and many of their alleged partners have distanced themselves from the project..
The Trump administration is no ally to Jewish people. The Trump administration's continued alliance with neo-Nazi organizations — exemplified by Elon Musk's Nazi salute — exposes this executive order as nothing but a ploy to further their xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda. Beyond Musk, several of Trump’s cabinet picks, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have spread alarming antisemitic rhetoric with neither consequences nor condemnation by the majority Republican caucus. Trump himself has come under fire for refusing to condemn white nationalist violence, saying in 2017 after the deadly Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, that there were “very fine people on both sides.”
We stand in solidarity with our non-citizen allies. This executive order effectively turns Cornell and other universities into de facto enforcement arms of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Cornell has the choice to either stand up for its community members or continue to cower to far-right nationalist interests. Interim President Michael Kotlikoff needs to fight back against this administration’s constant barrage of executive orders that aim to strip our campuses' most vulnerable communities of their right to protest, speak out against state violence and organize peacefully. Bending the knee to fascism is not “institutional neutrality,” and Kotlikoff knows that. We call on the Cornell administration to refuse to comply with visa-related targeting based on false accusations of antisemitism, issue a stronger statement that commits to protecting student, staff and faculty immigration data and acknowledge the factual errors of this executive order that are being used to justify the silencing of activism on campus.
Signed on behalf of Jewish Voice for Peace at Cornell by,
Dan Hirschman, Associate Professor of Sociology
Lea Esipov ’27, President of Jewish Voice for Peace at Cornell
Jacob Berman ’26, Vice-President of Jewish Voice for Peace at Cornell
Eliza Salamon ’24, Former Co-Chair of Jewish Voice for Peace at Cornell
Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) at Cornell is a student organization committed to promoting justice, equality, and human rights for Palestinians through advocacy, education, and community engagement. They can be reached at cornell@jvp.com.
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