Dear Wordsworth College Community,

I want to address the controversy on campus that has been caused by some of our students’ reactions to the comments I have made this week. While much of what I said has been stripped out of context, I nevertheless wish to apologize for any hurt that has been experienced as a result of the manner in which some have chosen to interpret my words. It was not my intention for this to happen.

When I wrote on my blog last week that “all Jews” are “ghastly, horn-toting, goblin-like creatures who drink the blood of the natives in every country they invade and conquer,” I was merely trying to express how worried I am about the ongoing geopolitical situation in the Middle East. When, during my Resisting Archetypes lecture, I described Israel as “the greedy octopus,” I was hoping to draw further attention to income inequality. My suggestion on MSNBC that we ought to “launch anyone in a kippah into space” was humorous hyperbole. I am sorry if my contributions to the discourse were misinterpreted. This is not who I am.

My academic background is in Applied Decolonization — a complicated field with its own argot, slang, and esoteric terms of art. By tweeting “Yes! Yes! Hamas! Go!” I was engaging in a pedagogical attempt to convey to a lay audience the frustrations that can arise when land disputes persist over time. It should be noted that, in Arabic, the word “massacre” has a different connotation than it does in English, denoting something akin to “an internal struggle to alter the religious composition of a geographical area.” As I observed last year, when I had Professor Cohen fired for creating an unsafe work environment in the economics department, academic freedom and free speech are crucial to the exchange of ideas on campus, and I would not want to see the open discussion of sophisticated concepts fall victim to mass hysteria or mass hypnosis. While I regret my particular choice of words, I will not apologize for my effort to create a better world. I oppose all violence.

Emotions are running high. In the spirit of inclusivity, it is time that we all took a step back and made a renewed effort to understand each other. To this end, I will be hosting a poetry slam tomorrow night in the Yasser Arafat Memorial Building, at which I will be previewing my new collection, Feed Zion to the Lion: A Second Look at the Population Crisis.

With Peace and Love, from the river to the sea.

Zoe Parner-Orange