Jerusalem – Together – The International Academic Campaign issued a report in which it addressed the increasing pace of the academic boycott movement against the occupation, in which popular and academic diplomatic activities and campaigns are active, especially the threat of an international boycott of Israeli academic institutions due to their complicity with the Israeli apartheid regime, especially since Palestinian universities are facing attacks and several challenges. To preserve academic life under an apartheid regime and the destruction and targeting of academic institutions and academics, which requires true solidarity.
The report stated that in light of the continuing crimes of occupation and genocide after October 7, 2023, this cast a shadow over the status and role played by Israeli academics and researchers who felt what they called ‘general hostility toward Israel’ in American university departments, and colleges of medicine and natural sciences, despite the fact that The boycott of Israel was
previously limited to departments and faculties of the humanities and social sciences, and Israeli researchers fear that the attitudes of academia will harm their work abroad, prevent them from advancing professionally, harm academic research in Israel and ostracize Israeli researchers in the academic world.
As a result of the academic boycott today, all scientific societies in several research fields have refused to publish a statement of support for Israel, or to publish a neutral statement, in addition to a hidden boycott that includes refusing to accept and evaluate articles by Israeli researchers, and rejecting proposals to attend conferences or stop inviting Israeli lecturers to conferences abroad, and there is A feeling of increasing isolation, coupled with criticism and lack of sympathy towards Israel.
The expansion of the academic boycott.
The International Academy stated in its report that the global academic boycott of Israeli universities is increasing day after day, considering that these univ
ersities are an integral part of colonialism and the apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology at the University of Technology in Australia announced that it had canceled a contract with the Israeli arms manufacturing company ‘Elbit’, in addition to the fact that in March 2024, four Norwegian universities ended their cooperation with Israeli universities, and the University of Oslo froze student and academic exchange agreements with the Israeli University of Haifa, and decided not to sign A cooperation agreement with any Israeli university in the future, given that Israeli universities are complicit in the crimes committed against the Palestinian people and because they play a fundamental role in developing Israeli military and security knowledge, as is the case with Tel Aviv University, which developed the ‘suburb doctrine,’ which means using the occupation army. The Israeli army used excessive force against civilians and civilian infrastructure, w
hile the ‘Talpiot’ military program of the Hebrew University provides the opportunity for graduates to obtain higher university degrees while serving in the army, thus exploiting their experiences to advance military research and development. The Technion University also implemented plans and actions The apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank and surveillance technology in cooperation with the Defense Industries Company, and the Israeli University of Technion is developing drone technologies.
Petitions and statements for academic boycott
The report indicated that about 939 researchers and academics from the Nordic group (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark) issued, in mid-November 2023, a statement calling on academics around the world not to stand idly by in the face of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians and the freezing of educational cooperation. And research with the occupation academies.
With the escalation of calls and movements to boycott the occupation and its educational i
nstitutions, Oslo Metropolitan University, the University of South-Eastern Norway, the University of Bergen, and the Bergen School of Architecture have terminated cooperation agreements with Israeli universities that they consider complicit in committing genocide in Gaza.
The University of Bergen justified the cessation of its cooperation with the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design by establishing a workshop on the university campus to design and sew uniforms and equipment for Israeli soldiers.
Academic calls have grown in Scandinavian countries after the International Court of Justice took a position that deemed it ‘possible that Israel is committing genocide.’
In its report, the International Academy addressed the expanding scope of academics’ movement at the international level through claims and petitions and stated that on February 7, 2024, About 1,200 students and university professors in Norway signed a petition calling on national educational institutions to boycott the Israeli occupation academies
, believing that Israeli universities are complicit in the colonial and apartheid system. The Norwegian academic at Oslo Metropolitan University, Professor Hege Hermansen, led with about 110 of her colleagues. Her colleagues in the Norwegian academic community are campaigning to make the boycott of the occupying state comprehensive.
The International Academy’s report added that on March 12, 2024, the administration of the Hebrew University took a racist and arbitrary decision to suspend the teaching of Professor Nadra Shalhoub-Kevorkian in the departments of Criminology and Social Work at the university. Background: She signed a petition in October 2023, condemning the war on the Gaza Strip and demanding that it be stopped, and that children be protected and their rights be preserved, along with more than 2,000 scientists, researchers, and academic students from around the world.
In the wake of that decision, 391 distinguished professors and academics in the most important universities and scientific resear
ch centers in the world signed a statement published on March 22, 2024 declaring a boycott of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem due to the restriction of academic freedoms and collusion with the Zionist apartheid regime.
On March 12, 2024, 100 European academics signed a petition in which the academics condemned the systematic destruction of the educational system by the occupation forces, the annihilation of education in Gaza, the continued targeting of academics, educational institutions and cultural heritage sites in the Strip, and the systematic targeting of civilian objects by the Israeli occupation forces. The academics also called on educational institutions Higher education, scholars and academics around the world call for raising their voices against the deliberate and widespread destruction of Palestinian cultural and historical property, and to boycott complicit Israeli academic institutions, especially those built on occupied Palestinian territories and within illegal Israeli settlements.
The r
eport stated that more than 180 British academics had signed a separate petition condemning the impact of the ongoing Israeli military attacks on educational institutions in Gaza and targeting students, researchers and professors, stressing that they represent a clear violation of international humanitarian law.
The report indicated an increase in the extent of the damage to Israeli higher education and scientific research, as the boycott is no longer limited to individual academics, but is also boycotted by entire academic institutions in the West, including Oslo Metropolitan University, which stopped student exchanges with Israel, or the Belgian University of Ghent, which one of its committees decided Suspending projects involving Israeli researchers, or even the Italian University of Turin, whose board of directors decided to boycott Israeli universities in general.
Increasing racism and universities playing the role of ‘informants.’
The International Academy’s report reviewed the existence of an unprec
edented and systematic campaign by Israeli educational institutions against Arab students, as about 160 summonses were directed to students by various universities, colleges, and educational institutions, including the University of Haifa, because of publications, students in Most of them were to stop the war on Gaza, and forty days after the outbreak of the war, about 10 Arab students from universities and colleges were arrested, after the university filed a complaint with the police against them.
Arab students in various educational institutions do not have the right to freedom of expression of opinion, and ‘the Israeli Ministry of Education contributed to this reality by issuing instructions to deal harshly with Arab students, and giving a green light to incitement against them on this scale, with legitimacy from the Minister of Education personally.’ Yoav Kish, who boasts of his racism and hostility to everything Arab and Palestinian.
The report explained that 26 student blocs from various universities
demanded that the European Union, through a letter sent on 10/29/2023, ‘review the academic agreements with the Israeli Ministry of Education and the participating Israeli academic institutions.’ In this campaign, all international academic institutions in the world must review their dealings with Israeli institutions involved in racist practices. Donor funders must ensure that their support is not used to support anti-Arab campaigns and incite them.
Rejection of the occupation and anti-Semitism?
The report concluded that the academic conflict and challenge grew and were reflected after Columbia University banned, last November 2023, the ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’ organization and the ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ organization, under the pretext that they violated university policy without giving them an opportunity and the right to respond.
While the occupying state is intensifying its efforts in Scandinavian universities, in a counter role through the Zionist lobby known as the ‘Israeli Academy Monit
or,’ which is charged with implementing campaigns to monitor and intimidate the educational and academic level in the West to silence universities’ criticism of the occupying state and insult prominent figures and Palestinian society, under the pretext of ‘anti-Semitism.’ In the United States of America, Kenneth Gervin stopped his support for Harvard University in mid-March 2024, which amounted to about $300 million. His decision came on the pretext that the university did not take a serious stance towards manifestations of ‘anti-Semitism’ and did not prevent student demonstrations denouncing genocide and aggression against the Palestinian people and beyond that. No student who signed a petition denouncing the aggression will be employed. University President Claudie Guy resigned from the presidency of the university because she defended her permission for pro-Palestinian student activities on the university campus, and this came in the context of her appearance before the US Congress.
Source: Maan News Age
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