Dear all, 

At the GSA Students’ Association, we are in support of the content of this open letter and are distributing it on behalf of GSA students. 

Open letter, sign here.  

We encourage all students and staff to read this letter, and sign to affirm their support.  

Further Resources and Reading: 

• Actionable Ways to Support the End to Genocide in Palestine – Resource List: Google Doc 
• Artworkers for Palestine Scotland Group: Instagram 
• Open letter from the art community to cultural organisations (originally published in Art Forum): e-flux link 
• Palestine Studies – Publishers of the Journal of Palestine Studies (Ar & En) and Jerusalem Quarterly: Instagram 
• Plestia Alaqad – Palestinian journalist:  Instagram  
• The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) – A non-profit organization that offers journalists facts, analysis, experts, and digital resources about Palestine and Palestinians: Website, Instagram 
• White Pube: No Sunday Text Free Palestine (and call to email your MP): website, Instagram   

Thanks, 

The GSASA  

[Full Open Letter Text:]

To Penny Macbeth, Rachel Dickson and the Board of Governors,

We represent a collective of students and staff who are deeply concerned by the Glasgow School of Art’s failure to take a public stance on Palestine. As we bear witness to the ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, occupation, collective punishment and humanitarian crisis in Gaza enforced by the state of Israel and supported/armed by Western governments, we urgently call for GSA to break their silence and make a public statement of solidarity with Palestine.

We call on GSA to include divestment from Israeli and international companies that are complicit in violations of Palestinian rights within its Investment Policy. The policy should exclude ongoing ties to Israel through the GSA’s investments now, and prohibit future relations, until Israel meets its obligation to recognise the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law.

In light of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design’s support for the actions of the State of Israel, we also request that GSA end all partner relations with the institution, currently in place via the GSA exchange programme.

As a cultural institution with a wide international community we believe these actions can be powerful in encouraging solidarity and raising awareness, as well as resisting the Conservative government’s complicity and its increasingly authoritarian policies towards domestic protest and boycott.

With impunity, Israel has already undertaken three of the five defining acts outlined by the United Nations Genocide Convention. Over 5,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October, while those who are still alive are being denied water, food and power. GSA needs to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people, and make a distinct, uncompromised and principled stance against genocide and settler colonialism.

GSA’s commitments to EDI, ‘decolonising the curriculum’, or even climate justice, mean nothing if it does not stand with Palestine. We are in agreement with the ‘Artworkers for Palestine Scotland’ group when they write, ‘We are intervening in a culture wherein it is acceptable for arts organisations to aestheticise a radical politic of decolonization and use it to gloss over their tacit contributions to systematised violence and imperialism. People are drawn to art because of its liberatory power, and arts and cultural institutions which have varying degrees of complicity with apartheid are cynically failing their audiences, workers and artists.’

It’s not too late to act. We urge you to add the weight of your cultural position to this call to condemn the atrocities increasing every single day. In this state of crisis and emergency, immediacy of action is crucial. We recognise the legal or institutional barriers you may face in taking a position as an organisation, and draw your attention to your organisational obligations to uphold the Equality Act 2010. Taking an uncompromised stance against settler colonialism, Islamophobia and genocide sends a clear signal in times when people of colour, especially Palestinians, Muslim and Jewish people are already facing a rise in violence and hate crimes, directed against them. You have a duty of care toward your students, workers, artists, stakeholders, audiences – past, present and future.

ACTIONS

We urge you to:

1. Raise your voice, exhibit integrity and leadership by making a call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the immediate release of appropriate humanitarian aid, and an end to the settler-colonial occupation of Palestine.

2. Divest from Israeli and international companies that are complicit in violations of Palestinian rights.

3. Cancel exchange relations, via GSA exchange programmes, with Israel until apartheid has ended and reparations have been made.

4. Include your stance against settler colonialism and occupation in your organisational policy. Commit to BDS and include a BDS policy.

5. Provide clear, actionable resources and organisational processes to protect workers and audiences from acts of Islamophobia, antisemitism, and other forms of racism during this period. We urge you at the same time as resisting antisemitism, to reject the rhetoric that support of Palestine and speaking out against Israel’s war crimes is anti-semitic. We draw your attention to the campaign group Jewish Voice for Peace who campaign for Palestine’s freedom and the liberation of all people. 

6. Commit to supporting those who courageously speak out on this issue, even in the face of institutional and media scrutiny. 

Signed,

https://forms.gle/h4wfm2Ct22XTYRtdA