Forced to Resign

following unflattering remarks about my Jewish friends who won't speak out against a Palestinian genocide

The following is a letter I wrote last week to the SUNY Sullivan Board of Trustees and the SUNY Sullivan Foundation Board of Directors. I was asked to join the SUNY Sullivan Foundation Board in June of this year.

Dear SUNY Sullivan Board of Trustees and the SUNY Sullivan Foundation Board of Directors

You didn’t get to know me very well. And since no one from either Board, other than Jose, reached out to me at all following your receipt of a social media post that I made on my personal Facebook page, I would like to give you a little background and context to my post. The post was screenshot by a man in our community named Bill Liblick who, you may or may not know, is notorious in political circles in Sullivan County for being a manipulator who plays both sides of the system and stirs up controversy seemingly for his own enjoyment. When he reposted my words to a Facebook group that he moderates, he blocked me from being able to comment, from being able to add to the conversation, defend myself or add context. This is the environment that this post came to you from - a place where Bill dropped blood into the waters and waited for the sharks to circle.

This is Bill’s second or third attempt to scare me into silence because he doesn’t like that I am publicly pro-Palestinian. He would also like to distract our community from the genocide that’s happening in Gaza. He would like the conversation instead to be about words and hurt feelings rather than about the brutal atrocities currently taking place at the hands of Israel.

The screenshot that was disseminated and passed around social media that then made its way to you, was NOT accompanied with the photo that I posted alongside my words. For the official record, I am including that photo here.

I don’t know how many board members have, like me, been bearing witness to this genocide since October of 2023. But as a Palestinian, I feel this is my duty. I cannot sit in ignorance nor in silence. So I view everything every day and I share.

Since I did not have the chance to meet any of the members of the Board of Directors for the College, I wanted you to know my background: I am Palestinian on my father’s side. I have friends and family in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. My father was born in Haifa where the Seikaly family had been living for 300 years. My grandfather owned a number of businesses and properties in Haifa and in 1948, when my father was 2 years old, and when the Zionists decided to launch their terrorist raid on the region, all of the Seikalys were forced to flee to different parts of the world.

For the past year, I have been doing what I can in my small corner of the world to bring awareness to the Palestinian struggle and also to try to humanize Palestinians in a community where most people don’t know any Palestinians and where many people have been brainwashed from birth to see us as “human animals,” a phrase I still hear people utter. (Apparently it’s completely acceptable to call Palestinians “human animals” here in the United States. I haven’t heard of anyone losing a board seat or Congressional seat for doing so). 

I have been hosting Palestinian events at my businesses and helping to organize others in other locations around Sullivan County: dinners, film screenings, book clubs, talk-backs. I set up a table every Sunday at the Jeffersonville Market this past summer with literature and products from the West Bank for sale, to talk to passers-by about the current crisis and the Palestinian struggle. I sell relevant books on the topic in my bake shop, most of them written by Israelis. I’ve been invited to tell my story on WJFF and Trailer Talk with Sabrina Artel. I spent a Sunday with Jewish Voice for Peace at their Liberation School, taking in lessons from their activism. I stand with my Jewish friend Beverly Sterner and other Jewish activists on the bridge in Narrowsburg at the vigil on Saturday nights in an effort to call attention to the civilian deaths in Gaza that our taxes are paying for.

I do all of this because I feel that information is key and I am all too aware of the disinformation of the past 80 years. For far too long, the Palestinian story has been censored and buried - resulting in the “surprise of October 7th.” October 7th was not a surprise to anyone who had been following the Palestinian struggle since 1948. And if we in the diaspora can be of any help to our people back home, it is to be their voice here in the United States and share their story - finally.

Displaced families in Gaza living in tents are being burned alive by Israeli bombs. Gazans are being starved right now because Israel is not allowing food to cross the border. Children playing soccer amid the rubble that was once their home are being killed by Israeli bombs that we are paying for. And while all of this is happening, I see the social media posts of my rich Jewish friends in New York City hosting fundraisers in their Hamptons homes for the Israeli army, wearing their designer dresses and designer shoes because the photos might end up in the Style Section of the New York Times. 

And this is what I was calling out in the social media post that made its way to you. I composed that post in anger, after a friend of mine shared the image above, after crying uncontrollably at my desk, yet again. Those of us following closely have viewed thousands of images like this. Are we traumatized? Have we lost all faith in our government, and in our collective humanity? Yes. And I utterly fear the prospect of having to bear witness to another 365 days of this indiscriminate and illegal slaughter. October 7th was one day. And it was a horrible day. But it was ONE. On that day, 695 Israeli civilians, 373 security forces, and 71 foreigners were killed. By contrast, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by Israel with bombs that we sent them, millions more are currently starving, displaced from their homes, going without any medical attention and there is no end in sight to what Gabor Mate described yesterday as “another holocaust.”

So on October 9th of this year, I decided to make a public post and speak directly to my Jewish friends who have been completely silent on this issue despite the fact that this is being carried out in their name and therefore they might actually be the only ones who are able to stop it. And I chose a tone that I thought might get their attention. Well guess what? It did. Forgive me, but I spent a year trying to educate my community, trying to get them to see past Israeli propaganda and to spend some time learning about Palestine and Palestinians. And I have tried to be respectful and politically correct and patient with my Jewish friends who I know have a lot of “unlearning” to do. And when she was invited to one of these events, one of the Jewish women living in Jeffersonville said, with utter disdain and supremacy: “And what do you think I should do? Show up at one of your “polite” events? Thanks, I’ll pass.” Because to her, I can only assume, Palestinians are still “human animals.” So I guess racism is still perfectly acceptable in Sullivan County as well.

If this county and this board wants to call my various efforts “antisemitic”, I guess I’m at a point where I’m going to have to be ok with that. I’m not sure that word holds much meaning right now since everything everyone does in the name of ending this genocide is now considered “antisemitic.”  I understand that some people found my words offensive, but I don’t think that makes them any less true. It just makes them words they would rather not hear. And what is more offensive? Me calling my Jewish friends out for being materialistic and supremacist, or burning people alive, over and over again for a year while millions of pro-Palestinians and anti-Zionist Jews take to the streets demanding an arms embargo from our government that ignores us because they have been bought off by certain individuals who are incentivized to keep the violence going?

I hereby resign from the Foundation Board and wish you luck in all your future endeavors.  

Regards,

Lauren Seikaly

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-Content of original Facebook post, included with the picture of murdered Gazans:

Oh well, it has to happen. For the safety of all Jews everywhere. In Hoboken. Long Island. Miami Beach. May all Jews stay safe. Safe in your homes with your designer shoes, designer clothing, and weekly trips to the salon to dye your hair and lift your face. You are the most important people on the planet. Your safety trumps everything. May you all be able to live your wealthy lives in safety and privilege here in the United States of Israel and abroad. Where no one will ever be allowed to point out your hypocrisy and keep their job at the same time. Our political parties are here for you to purchase. Our Presidential candidates have chosen you over the rest of humanity. Enjoy the fruits of your labor. May everyone else perish and suffer and be blown up into such tiny pieces that their families have to bury them in a shoebox. Soon, all Arabs will be dead and you will be able to spread across the region. You will not only have your own state, you will have your own continent. And everyone will love and admire you for your remarkable achievements in stealing land and genociding an entire race of people.