MES/AMEA Joint Statement on the Ongoing War Against Gaza (October 2023)

Jointly issued by the Middle East Section (MES) of the American Anthropological Association and the Association of Middle East Anthropology (AMEA) of the Middle East Studies Association (see here).

October 20, 2023

As anthropologists of the Middle East, we come together in grief and shock over Palestinian and Israeli lives lost. We bear witness to the destruction of homes, neighborhoods, and cities. We mourn the deaths that have occurred, and we fear for the death that is coming. We stand for justice, safety, and dignity for the more than two million Palestinians living in Gaza, and for all Palestinians and Israelis. We stand against the ongoing Israeli assault on Palestinians in Gaza that is being supported financially, militarily, and discursively by Western governments, and in particular the United States, where both of our organizations are based.

As we write, Israel has cemented a siege of Gaza that has existed in various forms for the past 16 years. This includes an unprecedented bombing campaign resulting in mass civilian casualties. Since Friday, October 13, Israel has ordered the forced displacement of half of the population of over two million to the already densely populated southern part of Gaza. More Palestinians are displaced today than became refugees during the Nakba of 1948. A large majority of Gazans are refugees whose families were dispossessed at that time.

Israel has cut off access to food, electricity, water and fuel, and a humanitarian catastrophe is well underway. These actions were preceded by the dehumanizing rhetoric