Under the Israeli regime, Palestinians have been driven from their land, had their houses bulldozed, have been denied access to water and arable land and live in a state of constant surveillance, interrogation and oppression, denied other basic rights such as education and medical treatment. Palestinian university life is marked by midnight arrests, raids on university premises, army brutality, classroom assassinations and curfews. Israel has constructed a web of nationality and residency laws designed for use by one section of the population against another, now reinforced with its apartheid wall. The parallels to South Africa’s former regime of racial segregation are undeniable.
John Dugard, a South African professor who is the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories stated earlier this year: “Israel’s laws and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories certainly resemble aspects of apartheid. It has become abundantly clear that the wall and checkpoints are principally aimed at advancing the safety, convenience and comfort of settlers.”
There is a catalogue of evidence showing that when Israeli academics do speak out against their state’s policies (which is rare), they are often persecuted and harassed by their state and media. Ilan Pappé is a typical example, and is now transferring to Exeter University in order to escape the concerted effort by the Zionist lobby to thwart his career. With close investigation it can be seen that Israeli academia is far from a bastion of freedom of expression.
Israeli academia has remained compliant in the regime of ethnic segregation; no Israeli institution has ever publicly opposed their state’s military occupation or the deprivation of fundamental rights to the Palestinian people. The flow of advisors from academia to the government and vice-versa in Israel is remarkably above average. A great many ministers and all army strategists who plan the control network in the Occupied Territories come from Israeli academia – architects plan the settlements whilst the military derives its research into weapons and technology from its universities.
Some highlight the fact that many Palestinian universities have been founded under occupation. However, between 1973 and 1992, Birzeit University alone was closed on 15 occasions while a military order in 1982 intervened directly in university administration – to interfere with the cultural development of an occupied territory is a breach of the fourth Geneva Convention. In spite of billions of dollars of international aid over the decades, Israel has made no positive financial contribution to education in the occupied territories. Instead the Israeli state has forcibly closed Palestinian universities, shot and killed Palestinian students and lecturers, bombed a Palestinian school for the blind and consistently harasses students on their way through check points to school. A boycott of collaboration with Israeli institutions remains a proportionate yet powerful act in drawing attention to the fact that those involved in academia around the world will no longer tolerate the atrocities that are being committed by the Israeli state at the expense of the Palestinian people.
Ilan Pappé, a senior lecturer at Haifa Univeristy and outspoken critic of Israel supports the boycott of his state: “Outside pressure is effective in a country where people want to be regarded as part of the civilized world, but their government, with their explicit and implicit help, pursues policies which violate every known human and civil right.”
Such a boycott against Israel is in no way anti-Semitic; it is supported by Jews and non-Jews and opposes racial prejudice of all kinds. Simply, the boycott is motivated by its opposition to the systematic discrimination that Palestinians have been forced to endure under Israeli occupation. It would give protection to those within Israel critical of the occupation and, equally as important, displays solidarity with the Palestinian people who have been denied their basic rights to life, liberty and access to education for far too long.The example of South Africa reminds us that boycotts exert international pressure in forcing those within an apartheid regime to take notice. It is the duty of all those committed to social justice to support such non-violent action and actively oppose racial segregation of any kind.
More information about the University and College Union (UCU) boycott discussion can be found at www.ucu.org.uk
At the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) conference, delegates voted for a motion calling on the NUJ “to support a boycott of Israeli goods” and for the TUC to demand that sanctions are imposed on Israel by the British Government and the United Nations. Details can be seen at www.nuj.org.uk
