Academic boycott of Israel spreads to US & Jerusalem universities

Monday February 02, 2009 03:18 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

Hundreds of professors and scholars in the US have, for the first time, joined in an academic boycott of the terrorist state of Israel, in an effort to pressure the Zionist racist Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian land, and disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people. In addition, Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, a Palestinian-run university, has joined the call for boycott.

The US boycott comes in the wake of dozens of similar boycotts launched in various parts of the world, including in England, Spain, Canada and Australia.

The Canadian boycott began in Quebec when academics signed a letter stating:

“We are a group of teachers and employees at Quebec colleges and universities who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and with the people of Gaza who have suffered through the Israeli siege as targets of Israel’s brutal military attack. It will take more than ceasefires to bring a just and lasting peace in Palestine and Israel. We are acting in response to an appeal for support issued January 2, 2009 by the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees. In the wake of the Israeli bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza, the Federation of Unions has urged academics around the world to support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.” The Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario proposed, "Israeli academics be barred from speaking, teaching or conducting research at the province's universities unless they condemn Israel's actions in Gaza."

In the US, professors and scholars declared, "As educators of conscience, we have been unable to stand by and watch in silence Israel's indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions." They launched the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel after Israel's 3-week long assault on the Gaza Strip which ended on January 18th, in which 1400 Palestinians were killed, many of them civilians. The professors call for divestment initiatives and boycotts of Israeli academic institutions and joint educational and cultural initiatives. They make a comparison between the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the apartheid policies of South Africa, which ended in 1993.

al-Quds University in Jerusalem, with branches in the West Bank, has stated that it will phase out all cooperation with Israeli universities. In a statement issued by the University, officials stated:

“If the two-state solution is as far away today as it was ten years ago, there is no justification for continued academic cooperation based on reaching that solution. And there is no justification for continued official and non-official cooperation in other fields, foremost security coordination between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel. Ending academic cooperation is aimed at, first of all, pressuring Israel to abide by a solution that ends the occupation, a solution that has been needed for far too long and that the international community has stopped demanding.”

The University Board of Directors also noted that the decision to cut ties came “in response to the prior Israeli onslaught [on Gaza]; the acts and policies of Israeli governments over the past ten years, including settlement construction in East Jerusalem, the tightening of the siege on the occupied territories and thwarting any negotiated peace process that will lead to an independent Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.”