From:
Prof Lynne Segal
Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace - International
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We write from FFIPP (Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace) , an organisation that has built links with critical Israeli and Palestinian academics as well as with academics - Jewish and non-Jewish - in Europe and the USA, committed to seeing an end to Israel's long and inhuman occupation. The violations of academic freedom in Palestine are ongoing and profound: including denial of the right to travel and harassment of staff and students at checkpoints; the administrative expulsion of Bir Zeit students to Gaza thus terminating their studies; the separation wall through the Al Quds campus in Abu Dis.
Many Palestinian academics have called for a boycott of Israeli academia and a proposal is being submitted to the pending AUT national conference as a response to that call. We do not oppose an academic boycott in principle, but feel it demands strategic evaluation: will it achieve its desired goals or might it hinder some attempts to build support for fundamental Palestinian rights? Not surprisingly, there are differing responses. We must not allow these differences to divert us from other activities that the vast majority of those who seek to end the occupation support.
In particular, we believe British academics should think carefully before developing research links and exchanges with Israelis: ascertaining whether they are part of the military machine or work to sustain the occupation; whether they are prepared to address and criticise infringements of Palestinian rights and willing/able to work with Palestinians.
We see no good reason for Israel to be granted any special privileges within the EU research funding regime or to be treated as a 'European' country in any scientific programmes.
We need to develop a substantial programme of assistance for Palestinian institution of higher education among international academics, involving staff and student exchanges, sharing of research and research materials etc
We need professional associations of academics, in Israel and internationally, to take a stand against the occupation and to issue guidelines regarding the use of academic connections to promote the end of Israeli occupation. We hope such interventions will activate academia in Israel and elsewhere in whatever academic fields to promote awareness of and resistance to Israeli infringements of human and civil rights.
We must condemn academic activities in Israel and elsewhere which clearly support the occupation (for example, the disgraceful establishment of the College of Judea and Samaria in the West Bank as a part of the machinery of Israeli occupation; or the confiscation of land in East Jerusalem to extend the Hebrew University's student dorms).
We call on international academics visiting Israeli institutions of higher education, and Israeli academics visiting foreign institutions, to make clear their objection to the continued Israeli occupation. The situation in Israel-Palestine is not normal. Israeli academia has to account for its role in the situation and by and large it is not a particularly heroic one.