Dear Daily: How Do You Get the Blood Off Your Hands?
This article is not satirical. In its publication, The Doily Allergen hopes to bring attention to a topic that has not received sufficient, accurate coverage from other local media.
On September 12th, 2025, local human rights group Iowa City Action for Palestine (ICAP) sent an open letter to Ann McKenna, Dean of the College of Engineering, and Kalindi Garvin, Director of Engineering Career Services. The letter urged them to live up to the College’s purported commitment to ethics and global safety by disinviting American Ordnance, an Iowa arms manufacturer implicated in the illegal killing of two Gazan paramedics, from the Engineering Career Fair.
The paramedics, Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun, were killed in their ambulance while going to assist five-year-old Hind Rajab, who was brutally murdered alongside her family.
In a response from the Dean, the evidence included in this letter was ignored, and ICAP’s demands were rejected out of hand. “Allowing an employer to recruit on campus is a commitment to student choice,” she wrote.
In their follow-up to the Dean’s response, ICAP wrote, “Our demonstration and letter call for the College to understand what career choices they are presenting to students. On January 29th, 2024, an M830A1 shell, produced at American Ordnance-operated Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, was used by Israeli forces in the killing of two Gazan paramedics. This war crime was well-documented and internationally condemned. Employment with companies abetting war crimes is not a choice the College of Engineering is obligated to offer.”
“The College’s continued and conscious invitation of American Ordnance demands immediate action,” ICAP added.
The Daily Iowan reported on ICAP’s protest event publicizing the letter. However, ICAP holds that the student newspaper did not represent their positions and demands with the fullness required for the severity of the situation, mentioning only “alleged Israeli war crimes” rather than any details on the specific killings of Zeino and Al-Madhoun, nor the fact that they were attempting to assist Rajab before her infamous death.
The Daily Iowan also continues to use hesitant language except when quoting directly. They fail to refer to the Gaza genocide by name, despite the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and hundreds of other human rights organizations condemning it as an act of genocide.
In an interview we conducted with ICAP member Uchechi Anomnachi, he stated, “In [The Daily Iowan’s] fervor to present ‘both’ sides of the story, they privilege perspectives that dehumanize Palestinians. There is no moral equivalence between voices that argue it is wrong for civilian populations to be bombed and besieged, and those that condone Israel’s genocide. If DI’s standards require them to pretend these perspectives are equal, their reporting will inevitably distort the truth.”
The Doily Allergen joins ICAP in condemning The University of Iowa’s suppression and intimidation of pro-Palestinian student protests and continued invitation of munitions companies like American Ordnance to the career fairs. We encourage students and community members to get involved with the anti-genocide movement and do what you can to peacefully resist our national, state, and university involvement in Israeli war crimes and the illegal occupation of Palestine.
Iowa City Action for Palestine has several recommendations for interested students. These include:
Attending the protests held every Friday at 4:30 p.m. at the Pentacrest;
Following the organization for information and updates on Instagram @Iowans4Palestine; and
Signing their petition, “Israel Bombs, Iowa Builds: American Ordnance out of UIowa.”
To University President Barbara Wilson, Dean McKenna, Director Garvin, all those involved in Iowa engineering’s connections to the arms industry, and the management and staff of The Daily Iowan, including and especially President Jason Brummond, we say:
We have peers on this campus content with the red-caked blood on their hands that gets heavier each day we allow this genocide and occupation to continue. Iowan hands made the bullets, made the planes, made the suffering that chokes the mouth of millions, killing people we’ve never met in wars we never voted for. Merchants of death are welcomed in our university career fairs, enticing our engineers with internships, wealth, and the opportunity to forge their futures out of the genocide they are complicit in.
The blood will only wash off when you end your complicity in the manufacture of genocide.
The full text of our interview with Anomnachi, as well as the ICAP press release including their open letter to McKenna and Garvin, are included below.
Interview with Iowa City Action for Palestine
The following interview has been edited slightly for formatting and clarity.
The Doily Allergen: How has The University of Iowa compared in its approach to campus protestors as opposed to other universities?
Uchechi Anomnachi: I’d say the main difference between UIowa and other schools comes down to utter intolerance for free expression from the institution. Universities habitually ignore the demands of student protesters, but The University of Iowa is committed to policing expression such that student protests are rendered invisible.
Things that are known to be well within the rights of students at other schools are considered “disruptions” at UIowa and the line of what’s allowed changes so quickly and frequently that protesters are left without recourse but to violate university policy in the hopes of accessing their constitutionally protected rights.
The clearest example of this is probably the encampments that accompanied the student intifada in late spring 2024. Elite institutions around the country allowed students to congregate in ways they saw fit. Student protesters may have gained some leverage with that tactic but by and large their demands were still ignored. The apparent difference at UIowa is that students’ attempt at an encampment was torn down by UIPD and state troopers within an hour.
What was an incredible ad hoc learning experience for thousands of students around the country was completely disallowed at UIowa. Beyond that, UIPD felt comfortable targeting, tracking, harassing, and intimidating students who they perceive to be associated with certain ideas.
TDA: What did The Daily Iowan do to misinterpret or misconstrue your views?
UA: DI is not unique in their refusal to call a genocide a genocide. Even professional journalists frequently fail to relay the reality of what’s happening in Gaza or the context of 100 years of occupation when writing about what they call the “Israel–Hamas war.”
DI regularly uses passive language and qualifiers to whitewash the war crimes committed by Israeli forces. When we provide them documented evidence of those crimes, being committed with weapons manufactured in Middletown, Iowa, they report on “alleged” “accusations.” Until recently they wouldn’t refer to protesters’ demands at all in their reporting.
In their fervor to present “both” sides of the story they privilege perspectives that dehumanize Palestinians. There is no moral equivalence between voices that argue it is wrong for civilian populations to be bombed and besieged, and those that condone Israel’s genocide. If DI’s standards require them to pretend these perspectives are equal, their reporting will inevitably distort the truth.
TDA: Was anything omitted in your previous coverage that you want highlighted?
UA: We sent the DI our open letter to the College of Engineering. Full coverage of the story would include publishing the letter so their readers can see the evidence and context for our demands.
TDA: What are steps an individual student can take to support Palestine?
UA: When a genocide is happening, I’d hope that everyone would search for the levers in their immediate vicinity that they can pull to make it stop. The main message is that what you can do is dictated by what position you are in. If Ann McKenna and Kalindi Garvin were reading this, I would tell them to take steps to dismantle the talent pipeline that funnels student towards manufacturing weapons for the genocide.
The closer one is to the genocide the more obvious these levers become. If an IDF soldier occupying Gaza stayed home and refused to carry out the genocidal orders of their superiors, they would remove one boot from the necks of the already violently dispossessed Palestinian population. Slightly further removed, workers in ports and shipping logistics can and have refused to supply Israel with the deadly payload which violently dispossesses Palestinians of their lives and land.
On an even more abstract plane, people in positions of power around the world have the ability to condemn and sever the ties they and their institutions have to violent dispossession. We saw the Iowa City council make this choice earlier this year and I commend them for doing so. But the genocide of Palestinians is carried on with our tax dollars in a way that circumvents the need for our consent.
For so many of us, the only lever we have is our voice. I would encourage any student who wants to support Palestine to use that voice to demand accountability from the University. Follow @Iowans4Palestine on Instagram for calls to action, sign the petition and demand American Ordnance be disinvited from recruiting on campus. Attend the weekly rally Fridays on the Pentacrest at 4:30. Get involved in building and reclaiming the student power that has been eroded by University leadership that doesn’t respect students as agents in shaping the community.
ICAP Press Release
Excellent post. Thank you.