Distinction in travel journalism
Is independent travel journalism important to you?
Click here to keep it independent

7 Aug, 2014

Over 100 Middle East Studies Scholars, Librarians Call for Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions

As employees in institutes of higher learning from around the world, we have a particular interest in and responsibility to respond to the obstacles to the right to higher education that the Israeli state has created for Palestinians both inside Israel and in the occupied territories. In the past two months alone, Israeli forces have raided Al Quds University in Jerusalem, the Arab American University in Jenin, and Birzeit University near Ramallah.2 In the current attacks, Israeli aerial bombardment has destroyed the Islamic University of Gaza. More generally, the Israeli state discriminates against Palestinian students in Israeli universities;3 and it isolates Palestinian academia by, among other tactics, preventing foreign academics from visiting Palestinian institutions in Gaza and the West Bank.4 We are also alarmed by the long history of confiscations of Palestinian archives and the destruction of libraries and research centers.5

The on-going Israeli massacres in Gaza have been ghastly reminders of the complicity of Israeli academic institutions in the occupation and oppression of Palestinians. Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar Ilan University, Haifa University, Technion, and Ben Gurion University have publicly declared their unconditional support for the Israeli military.6 More generally, there are intimate connections between Israeli academic institutions and the military, security, and political establishments in Israel.7 To take but one example: Tel Aviv University is directly implicated, through its Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), in developing the Dahiya Doctrine,8 adopted by the Israeli military in its assaults on Lebanon in 2006 and on Gaza today. The Dahiya Doctrine advocates the extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure and “intense suffering” among the civilian population as an “effective” means to subdue any resistance.9

Read the rest: Over 100 Middle East Studies Scholars and Librarians Call for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions.