The gated entrance to the University of Chicago’s main quadrangle. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Rdsmith4

Student government representatives at the University of Chicago are weighing a resolution to retract a recent statement from the body calling for “a Palestine that is free … from the river to the sea,” The Chicago Maroon reported on Tuesday.

On May 21, the incoming Undergraduate Student Senate (USG) issued a joint statement with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) amid hostilities in Israel, calling for the school to join the movement to boycott Israel, including by cancelling study abroad trips there.

“We stand against the ideology of Zionism that has been used as a justification for the murder, displacement and traumatization of Palestinian people,” the statement declared. “From the river to the sea, the USG supports a Palestine that is free.”

A resolution to retract the USG statement and apologize to the university’s Jewish community, sponsored by student Julia Brestovitskiy, is now being weighed by members of the College Council, with votes due by the end of the day on June 4, according to the Maroon.

The resolution claims that the controversial USG statement was drafted by newly elected, incoming senators who — according to the body’s bylaws — are not authorized to “make statements on its behalf” until June 13, 2021.

And, the resolution said, the statement on Israel was drafted without consulting “the respective Jewish Representative on the Student Government Committee on Marginalized Affairs (COMSA) and other Jewish members within Student Government.”

It also charged that the the USG published its statement on Facebook and Twitter during Shabbat, when religiously observant Jewish students would not be able to view the statement.

On May 24, UChicago Hillel published an open letter on Facebook condemning the USG’s letter, and in particular its use of the “river to the sea” trope.

“It blatantly calls for the forced displacement of Jews from their homeland, and for the wholesale destruction of the world’s only Jewish state,” the letter said. “Its implications are clear: Jewish citizens living in the area from the river to the sea — including the State of Israel —  should cease to exist.”

“The past two weeks have seen a rise in antisemitic incidents on campus — and in our country,” the letter continued. “Just a few days ago a driver yelled ‘F*ck Jews’ to a group of visibly Jewish students walking on Woodlawn Avenue.”

The letter was also signed by UChicago Friends of Israel, UChicago JStreet, UChicago Egalitarian Jewish Community, Yavneh of Hyde Park, Chabad at UChicago Student Board, University of Chicago Hillel Student Leadership, and the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity.

“Student Government has no mandate to make this statement and, in doing so, does not represent us or the student body as a whole. Together, we stand against the marginalization of Jewish students on campus and demand a full retraction and apology,” it concluded.

If passed, the USG vote on retracting its previous statement would require the Executive Slate of the incoming USG to receive “the approval of a majority of the student legislature and ‘at least on Zoom or in-person deliberation convening a quorum of the College Council.’”