Letter to UCSF: We support Dr. Marya

February 4, 2025

To the Chancellor, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine, and Chair of Department of Medicine:

In the 15 months between October 2023 and January 2025, Israel murdered over 60,000 Palestinians in its genocidal campaign on Gaza. The small, U.S.-backed nation-state is inarguably attempting to ethnically cleanse Palestinians—even the International Criminal Court has warrants out for the arrests of Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant, because the evidence is crystal clear. Those in power in Israel wish and intend to “wipe Gaza off the face of the Earth.” Why, then, has UCSF been targeting the staff and professors speaking out against this behemothic atrocity, rather than prioritize the emotional and physical safety of students who may be impacted by the genocide and any other forms of settler and white supremacist violence?

Dr. Rupa Marya is correct to question how medical and educational institutions should respond to the prospect of training doctors who were formerly engaged in the Israeli Defense Forces (or, since we prefer to tell it like it is, the Israeli Offensive Forces). Even before the siege began in Oct. 2023, the IOF was the police and military arm by which Israel maintained its apartheid system, and its soldiers used force and violence to uphold an apartheid state. All soldiers are trained to kill, brutalize, and steal, and for soldiers following the orders of officials who publicly claim “There are no innocents [in Gaza],” it is only logical to assume former IOF soldiers have been brainwashed to feel good, or at least justified, about committing cruel atrocities. PBS, BBC, and CNN have all reported on the videos and photos Israeli soldiers have gloatingly posted of themselves humiliating and terrorizing Palestinian families, vandalizing and ransacking homes and buildings, and destroying food and supplies. 

It is almost inane to have to explain Dr. Marya’s logic. Should we not scrutinize prospective students who have participated in a genocidal military? Militaries everywhere train their soldiers to kill, to maim, to destroy—objectives that are fundamentally incompatible with the ethic of care that the field of medicine is supposed to uphold. The Israeli military goes beyond in its violence, because Israel is not just waging war, it is committing genocide. And it is a commonly known fact that Israeli citizens are required to serve in the IOF. What is truly “intellectually bankrupt” is to insinuate that speaking the truth about the IOF’s role in genocide is a tired, anti-Semitic, racist trope. Yes, it is true that Jewish people face discrimination and prejudice in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, but in the context of Israel and Palestine, one side is clearly attempting to “wipe [the other] off the face of the Earth” and has billions of dollars in weapons to do it. Israel, not Palestine, is the one controlling land, water, and movement. Israel is the one violating international law by funding settlements in Palestinian territories. Israel is the one limiting how much water Palestinians can consume. It is morally reprehensible to use Jewish peoples’ history of struggle to obfuscate a present-day genocide and censor those who care to speak against it. We can see right through your veneer of concern for oppressed peoples.

As a poor people led / Indigenous people led organization, our family at POOR Magazine knows all too well about the white supremacy, anti-Blackness, ableism, and settler coloniality baked into the foundation of U.S. medicine. When poverty scholars try to seek care, medical institutions respond with dismissiveness and criminalization. They allow us to suffer, and even to die. It is professors, doctors, and nurses like Dr. Marya, who are helping to revolutionize the field of medicine from the inside, by demanding that medical professionals examine and contend with the power structures that shape your field. We hope that you can open your eyes to the truth and make the decision to support your assets, not censor them. 

In addition, firing Dr Marya will only foment more distrust and terror for your medical institution from disabled, houseless and communities of color who are already afraid of institutional medicine prone to dumping our disabled and houseless bodies, rarely listening and healing us. 

Signed,

POOR Magazine ComeUnity