7 feb 2019
(L to R) Celebrities, public figures & activists at Dublin’s Ha’penny Bridge during a launch of the Irish Call to Boycott Eurovision 2019 in Israel on June 27, 2018 (Image: Collins)
The Irish Campaign to Boycott the 2019 Eurovision, in Israel, welcomes the motion passed by the Dublin Broadcasting Branch of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) on January 29th ,whereby it states it “will support any member, working in RTÉ or elsewhere, who chooses to exercise a conscientious objection towards involvement in coverage of the song contest.”
The motion was passed by a large majority and represents a recognition that the Eurovision contest in Israel presents serious ethical issues for anyone who cares about human rights. Palestine News Network welcomes this support for workers choosing not to participate in coverage of the contest, either in Israel or in Ireland, as they do also with the Director General of RTÉ, Ireland’s National Broadcaster, Dee Forbes’ commitment, last year, not to sanction any workers whose consciences prevented them from travelling to Israel.
NUJ Dublin Broadcasting Branch Chair broadcaster Emma O’Kelly said, “The fact that the Eurovision is taking place this year in a country guilty of ongoing serious human rights abuses, including against journalists, means there will be members of ours who feel that for ethical reasons they can’t participate in coverage of the contest. We debated our attitude towards this [last] week and the branch decided by a very strong majority to express our willingness to support any member in that position.
“We were also mindful of the fact that our sister union, The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, is among a number of Palestinian organisations that have appealed to the world to not treat this year’s contest as just ‘any other Eurovision’.”
The Irish Campaign to Boycott the Eurovision in 2019 reiterated the call for RTÉ and any performers not to participate in the song contest in Israel.
“Further, we ask RTÉ to support the call from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate not to broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel’s illegal settlements, including those in occupied East Jerusalem; the least RTÉ should do to be in line with international law and European policy,” IPSC said in a statement.
The campaign to boycott the Eurovision in apartheid Israel enjoys widespread support in Ireland with almost 15,000 people signing a petition calling for non participation and also has endorsement from human rights activists, artists and other public figures, among them former Eurovision winner Charlie McGettigan; Irish broadcaster and former Eurovision commentator Mike Murphy; and former Eurovision presenters Carrie Crowley and Doireann Ni Bhriain. The Musicians’ Union of Ireland (MUI) and Irish Equity, have also endorsed the campaign.
Internationally hundreds of artists have joined the call to boycott the Eurovision in Israel, almost 40,000 people have signed a petition calling on members of the European Broadcasting Union to withdraw from the contest, and on January 29th more than 60 queer and trans liberation organizations from nearly 20 countries across Europe and beyond made a call on global LGBTQIA communities to boycott the competition.
While Israel continues to deny the Palestinian people their rights, people of conscience must continue to refuse to engage with that state and to support the call from Palestinians for solidarity by boycotting Eurovision 2019. To do so is to be on the right side of history.
The Irish Campaign to Boycott the 2019 Eurovision, in Israel, welcomes the motion passed by the Dublin Broadcasting Branch of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) on January 29th ,whereby it states it “will support any member, working in RTÉ or elsewhere, who chooses to exercise a conscientious objection towards involvement in coverage of the song contest.”
The motion was passed by a large majority and represents a recognition that the Eurovision contest in Israel presents serious ethical issues for anyone who cares about human rights. Palestine News Network welcomes this support for workers choosing not to participate in coverage of the contest, either in Israel or in Ireland, as they do also with the Director General of RTÉ, Ireland’s National Broadcaster, Dee Forbes’ commitment, last year, not to sanction any workers whose consciences prevented them from travelling to Israel.
NUJ Dublin Broadcasting Branch Chair broadcaster Emma O’Kelly said, “The fact that the Eurovision is taking place this year in a country guilty of ongoing serious human rights abuses, including against journalists, means there will be members of ours who feel that for ethical reasons they can’t participate in coverage of the contest. We debated our attitude towards this [last] week and the branch decided by a very strong majority to express our willingness to support any member in that position.
“We were also mindful of the fact that our sister union, The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, is among a number of Palestinian organisations that have appealed to the world to not treat this year’s contest as just ‘any other Eurovision’.”
The Irish Campaign to Boycott the Eurovision in 2019 reiterated the call for RTÉ and any performers not to participate in the song contest in Israel.
“Further, we ask RTÉ to support the call from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate not to broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel’s illegal settlements, including those in occupied East Jerusalem; the least RTÉ should do to be in line with international law and European policy,” IPSC said in a statement.
The campaign to boycott the Eurovision in apartheid Israel enjoys widespread support in Ireland with almost 15,000 people signing a petition calling for non participation and also has endorsement from human rights activists, artists and other public figures, among them former Eurovision winner Charlie McGettigan; Irish broadcaster and former Eurovision commentator Mike Murphy; and former Eurovision presenters Carrie Crowley and Doireann Ni Bhriain. The Musicians’ Union of Ireland (MUI) and Irish Equity, have also endorsed the campaign.
Internationally hundreds of artists have joined the call to boycott the Eurovision in Israel, almost 40,000 people have signed a petition calling on members of the European Broadcasting Union to withdraw from the contest, and on January 29th more than 60 queer and trans liberation organizations from nearly 20 countries across Europe and beyond made a call on global LGBTQIA communities to boycott the competition.
While Israel continues to deny the Palestinian people their rights, people of conscience must continue to refuse to engage with that state and to support the call from Palestinians for solidarity by boycotting Eurovision 2019. To do so is to be on the right side of history.
A Spanish company announced, yesterday, that it had rejected an Israeli tender to build part of the Jerusalem railway, which will cut deep into occupied Palestinian territory.
Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF or Construction and Other Railway Services) announced that it “refuses to build a section of the railway in Jerusalem because [it] included Palestinian land that will be confiscated, in violation of the resolutions of international legitimacy,” Al-Wattan Voice reported, according to Al Ray.
The company’s workers also rejected its participation in the project on the same grounds. Representatives of the workers said that the problem lies in the fact that the railway will pass through Palestinian lands to serve illegal settlements in East Jerusalem.
“Any project in any city around the world, especially Jerusalem, must respect human rights and international legitimacy in its implementation,” CAF stressed.
CAF added: “The General Assembly of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice [ICJ], through various resolutions, have said that they are against the occupation of land through which will pass the section of the railway.”
In related news, the so-called “Planning and Building Committee” of the Jerusalem municipality, on Tuesday, approved a plan to build 13 settlement units west of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
According to the Hebrew “Risht Kan” channel, Israeli authorities will evacuate the Palestinian population from that area and offer them compensation, after the plan is approved.
The Hebrew channel pointed out, according to the PNN, that the owner of this settlement project, a businessman from the settlers, whose daughter was seriously injured in a shooting near “Ofra” occurred recently.
Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF or Construction and Other Railway Services) announced that it “refuses to build a section of the railway in Jerusalem because [it] included Palestinian land that will be confiscated, in violation of the resolutions of international legitimacy,” Al-Wattan Voice reported, according to Al Ray.
The company’s workers also rejected its participation in the project on the same grounds. Representatives of the workers said that the problem lies in the fact that the railway will pass through Palestinian lands to serve illegal settlements in East Jerusalem.
“Any project in any city around the world, especially Jerusalem, must respect human rights and international legitimacy in its implementation,” CAF stressed.
CAF added: “The General Assembly of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice [ICJ], through various resolutions, have said that they are against the occupation of land through which will pass the section of the railway.”
In related news, the so-called “Planning and Building Committee” of the Jerusalem municipality, on Tuesday, approved a plan to build 13 settlement units west of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
According to the Hebrew “Risht Kan” channel, Israeli authorities will evacuate the Palestinian population from that area and offer them compensation, after the plan is approved.
The Hebrew channel pointed out, according to the PNN, that the owner of this settlement project, a businessman from the settlers, whose daughter was seriously injured in a shooting near “Ofra” occurred recently.
By Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.
A federal judge in Washington, DC, on Monday dismissed a lawsuit against the American Studies Association over its decision to support the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
The ruling is a significant blow to efforts by Israel lobby groups to use courts to harass, intimidate and silence supporters of Palestinian rights in US universities – a tactic known as lawfare.
In April 2016, several current and former members of the ASA filed the lawsuit against the group over its 2013 resolution backing the academic boycott.
In his 20-page ruling, US District Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote that the plaintiffs had no standing to file a lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of the ASA, and that their individual damage claims came nowhere near the $75,000 minimum required for them to seek relief in federal court.
At most, the individual plaintiffs could seek damages of a few hundred dollars to cover membership dues they allege were misappropriated, but they would have to find some other venue to pursue their claims, the judge found.
“The court basically said, in no uncertain words, that the plaintiffs suing ASA lied when they claimed to have ‘suffered significant economic and reputational damage.’” Radhika Sainath, senior attorney with the civil rights group Palestine Legal, told The Electronic Intifada. “But, as the court explained, ‘nowhere’ in the lawsuit could the plaintiffs explain what that damage was. It didn’t pass the smell test.”
“Desperate lawsuits”
“I’m thrilled that this baseless case has been dismissed. It served no purpose other than persecuting those who dare to criticize Israeli policy and seek to end the occupation through peaceful means,” Steven Salaita, one of the defendants, told The Electronic Intifada.
“Our victory further illustrates that it’s important to stand firm against attempts to silence those devoted to the cause of justice.”
In 2014, Salaita was fired by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for social media comments criticizing Israel’s assault on Gaza that year. He sued the university for breach of contract, alleging administrators acted under pressure from pro-Israel donors, later settling the case.
Salaita then found himself targeted by the lawsuit against the American Studies Association.
Along with Salaita, the lawsuit named as individual defendants the academics and Palestinian rights advocates Lisa Duggan, Curtis Marez, Avery Gordon, Neferti Tadiar, Sunaina Maira, Chandan Reddy, Jasbir Puar, J. Kehaulani Kauanui and John Stephens.
“These desperate lawsuits brought to silence advocates of Palestinian rights are not only losers – they’re helping to grow the movement by making even clearer who’s on the wrong side of history – who is the aggressor, who is unreasonable and who wants to silence debate,” Maria LaHood, deputy legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, told The Electronic Intifada.
LaHood, who represented Salaita in the ASA lawsuit, added, “Freedom, justice and equality have always been on the right side of history.”
The complaint alleged that a “cabal of USACBI leaders” surreptitiously took over the ASA and used their positions on its executive committee and national council to foist the boycott resolution on the association’s unsuspecting membership, misspending ASA money in the process.
As part of the solidarity movement, USACBI, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, argues that Israeli academic institutions should be boycotted because they are complicit in Israel’s systematic violations of Palestinian rights.
Driven by Israel lobby
The force behind the lawsuit was the Louis D. Brandeis Center, an Israel advocacy organization that has for years worked to smear Palestine solidarity activism as anti-Semitism, and attempts to suppress it with frivolous lawsuits and bogus civil rights complaints.
Until February last year, the Brandeis Center’s president Kenneth Marcus was an attorney for the plaintiffs.
Last June, the Senate confirmed Marcus as the Trump administration’s top civil rights enforcer at the Department of Education, a position that potentially allows him to pursue his campaign to repress supporters of Palestinian human rights from within the federal government.
The lawsuit against ASA had previously suffered a major setback.
In March 2017, the court threw out the plaintiffs’ key claim that the ASA had acted beyond its charter by backing the boycott.
“The boycott resolution was aimed both at encouraging academic freedom for Palestinians and strengthening relations between American institutions and Palestinians,” Judge Contreras wrote at the time. “Thus, it was not contrary to the ASA’s express purposes.”
But Contreras allowed other claims to go forward – until he eventually threw the lawsuit out altogether.
“The Zionists can’t accept the extent of revulsion over Israel’s crimes so they imagine that any group that stands up for justice has been tricked and manipulated into doing so,” Mark Kleiman, the attorney for J. Kehualani Kaunui and Jasbir Puar, told The Electronic Intifada.
“This blindness partially stems from their own reliance on tricks, bribes and subterfuge to slow down what is rapidly becoming a mass movement,” Kleiman added.
“In this lawsuit they simply made up accusations and then pretended they had been harmed by the things they imagined people had done.”
~Electronic Intifada/Days of Palestine
A federal judge in Washington, DC, on Monday dismissed a lawsuit against the American Studies Association over its decision to support the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
The ruling is a significant blow to efforts by Israel lobby groups to use courts to harass, intimidate and silence supporters of Palestinian rights in US universities – a tactic known as lawfare.
In April 2016, several current and former members of the ASA filed the lawsuit against the group over its 2013 resolution backing the academic boycott.
In his 20-page ruling, US District Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote that the plaintiffs had no standing to file a lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of the ASA, and that their individual damage claims came nowhere near the $75,000 minimum required for them to seek relief in federal court.
At most, the individual plaintiffs could seek damages of a few hundred dollars to cover membership dues they allege were misappropriated, but they would have to find some other venue to pursue their claims, the judge found.
“The court basically said, in no uncertain words, that the plaintiffs suing ASA lied when they claimed to have ‘suffered significant economic and reputational damage.’” Radhika Sainath, senior attorney with the civil rights group Palestine Legal, told The Electronic Intifada. “But, as the court explained, ‘nowhere’ in the lawsuit could the plaintiffs explain what that damage was. It didn’t pass the smell test.”
“Desperate lawsuits”
“I’m thrilled that this baseless case has been dismissed. It served no purpose other than persecuting those who dare to criticize Israeli policy and seek to end the occupation through peaceful means,” Steven Salaita, one of the defendants, told The Electronic Intifada.
“Our victory further illustrates that it’s important to stand firm against attempts to silence those devoted to the cause of justice.”
In 2014, Salaita was fired by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for social media comments criticizing Israel’s assault on Gaza that year. He sued the university for breach of contract, alleging administrators acted under pressure from pro-Israel donors, later settling the case.
Salaita then found himself targeted by the lawsuit against the American Studies Association.
Along with Salaita, the lawsuit named as individual defendants the academics and Palestinian rights advocates Lisa Duggan, Curtis Marez, Avery Gordon, Neferti Tadiar, Sunaina Maira, Chandan Reddy, Jasbir Puar, J. Kehaulani Kauanui and John Stephens.
“These desperate lawsuits brought to silence advocates of Palestinian rights are not only losers – they’re helping to grow the movement by making even clearer who’s on the wrong side of history – who is the aggressor, who is unreasonable and who wants to silence debate,” Maria LaHood, deputy legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, told The Electronic Intifada.
LaHood, who represented Salaita in the ASA lawsuit, added, “Freedom, justice and equality have always been on the right side of history.”
The complaint alleged that a “cabal of USACBI leaders” surreptitiously took over the ASA and used their positions on its executive committee and national council to foist the boycott resolution on the association’s unsuspecting membership, misspending ASA money in the process.
As part of the solidarity movement, USACBI, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, argues that Israeli academic institutions should be boycotted because they are complicit in Israel’s systematic violations of Palestinian rights.
Driven by Israel lobby
The force behind the lawsuit was the Louis D. Brandeis Center, an Israel advocacy organization that has for years worked to smear Palestine solidarity activism as anti-Semitism, and attempts to suppress it with frivolous lawsuits and bogus civil rights complaints.
Until February last year, the Brandeis Center’s president Kenneth Marcus was an attorney for the plaintiffs.
Last June, the Senate confirmed Marcus as the Trump administration’s top civil rights enforcer at the Department of Education, a position that potentially allows him to pursue his campaign to repress supporters of Palestinian human rights from within the federal government.
The lawsuit against ASA had previously suffered a major setback.
In March 2017, the court threw out the plaintiffs’ key claim that the ASA had acted beyond its charter by backing the boycott.
“The boycott resolution was aimed both at encouraging academic freedom for Palestinians and strengthening relations between American institutions and Palestinians,” Judge Contreras wrote at the time. “Thus, it was not contrary to the ASA’s express purposes.”
But Contreras allowed other claims to go forward – until he eventually threw the lawsuit out altogether.
“The Zionists can’t accept the extent of revulsion over Israel’s crimes so they imagine that any group that stands up for justice has been tricked and manipulated into doing so,” Mark Kleiman, the attorney for J. Kehualani Kaunui and Jasbir Puar, told The Electronic Intifada.
“This blindness partially stems from their own reliance on tricks, bribes and subterfuge to slow down what is rapidly becoming a mass movement,” Kleiman added.
“In this lawsuit they simply made up accusations and then pretended they had been harmed by the things they imagined people had done.”
~Electronic Intifada/Days of Palestine
The Republican-controlled United States Senate has passed legislation that would allow state and local governments to sanction those who support the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) against Israel, with a 77-23 vote in favor. The bill will now move to the House of Representatives, currently ruled by a Democratic majority.
“Israel is without a doubt one of the best friends in the world,” Senator Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in remarks to the Senate. “Certainly, in that neighborhood they live in, which is a dangerous neighborhood, they need our help. We worked with them very closely in many, many respects.”
Critics decried the measure as contrary to the free speech rights of Americans under the First Amendment of the Constitution, which in US jurisprudence has provided protection for people participating in boycotts as a form of political protest, Al Jazeera reported, according to the PNN.
“Our country was founded upon the concept and in the midst of a great boycott,” Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said in remarks to the Senate opposing the measure. “At the time, we were boycotting British goods and most specifically, British tea. There is likely nothing more American than to protest, to dissent and to boycott.”
26 states have adopted anti-BDS measures, which is backed by the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee advocacy group. However, US judges in Kansas and Arizona struck down such laws in 2018.
“This goes beyond supporting Israel or not supporting Israel. This is about Americans’ civil liberties,” Shibley Telhami, a pollster and professor at the University of Maryland, said.
“The differentiating characteristic of this one is that it is intruding into the civil liberties of Americans. Even people who oppose sanctions find it offensive that they have to penalize people who voice support for sanctions.”
“Israel is without a doubt one of the best friends in the world,” Senator Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in remarks to the Senate. “Certainly, in that neighborhood they live in, which is a dangerous neighborhood, they need our help. We worked with them very closely in many, many respects.”
Critics decried the measure as contrary to the free speech rights of Americans under the First Amendment of the Constitution, which in US jurisprudence has provided protection for people participating in boycotts as a form of political protest, Al Jazeera reported, according to the PNN.
“Our country was founded upon the concept and in the midst of a great boycott,” Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said in remarks to the Senate opposing the measure. “At the time, we were boycotting British goods and most specifically, British tea. There is likely nothing more American than to protest, to dissent and to boycott.”
26 states have adopted anti-BDS measures, which is backed by the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee advocacy group. However, US judges in Kansas and Arizona struck down such laws in 2018.
“This goes beyond supporting Israel or not supporting Israel. This is about Americans’ civil liberties,” Shibley Telhami, a pollster and professor at the University of Maryland, said.
“The differentiating characteristic of this one is that it is intruding into the civil liberties of Americans. Even people who oppose sanctions find it offensive that they have to penalize people who voice support for sanctions.”
6 feb 2019
Via BNC Official.
February 5, 2019 / By Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE) / United StatesThe Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE) supports the faculty at Pitzer College calling to suspend a complicit study abroad program in Israel over its discriminatory practices.
PFUUPE, which represents more than 6,000 Palestinian university staff at 13 higher education institutions in the occupied Palestinian territory, commends our colleagues at Pitzer College for overwhelmingly supporting this principled stand for Palestinian human rights and for equality.
Most importantly, we thank you for listening to us and acting upon the call from the vast majority of Palestinians, including academics and students, to refrain from business-as-usual academic relations with Israeli institutions while we are forced to live under oppression.
We hold dear the universal right to academic freedom, on principle and because Palestinians are obliged to fight for it every day, along with our right to education.
Our faculty members have, for decades, faced the policy of restricting movement and travel imposed by the Israeli occupation. This severely hampers our academic freedom, namely to reach our campuses, to teach our students, to conduct research, to collaborate with other academics or institutions and to participate in conferences, whether within the occupied Palestinian territory or abroad.
Israel also obstructs importation of academic material and scientific equipment for Palestinian universities, effectively imposing a boycott on our institutions of higher education.
Israel’s discriminatory policies further prevent international academics and students, in particular those of Palestinian/Arab origins or those supporting Palestinian rights, from teaching, studying and attending conferences at our universities. The past two years have seen an uptick in racially- or opinion- based denial of entry to Israel and refusal of visas and visa renewals, a repressive and deeply discriminatory Israeli policy that has long been customary.
Israel has repeatedly bombed Palestinian schools and universities in Gaza, and its illegal and brutal siege has denied the two million Palestinians there, including hundreds of thousands of students, their basic right to freedom of movement. Israel’s decade-old siege of Gaza is making it uninhabitable, according to the UN.
Palestinian students and faculty in the Israeli-occupied West Bank also face campus raids with Israeli soldiers firing live munitions and tear gas.
Palestinian citizens of Israel are subjected to Israel’s institutionalized racism, while Palestinian students face repressive restrictions on political activities and Palestinian educational facilities are underfunded.
We ask the Pitzer College community to try to imagine what it is like studying, teaching or performing research under these dire conditions of racism, repression and violent oppression.
As long as Israel continues to deny Palestinian human rights and academic freedom and impose discriminatory policies based on origins and political opinion, students, educators and academic institutions have a moral obligation and an ethical responsibility to ensure their campus is not contributing in any way to denying Palestinians our right to education and life.
We urge the Pitzer College Council to uphold the principled stand taken by an overwhelming majority of its faculty not to be complicit in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights and its blatantly racist and anti-democratic discriminatory policies.
Doing so will send a strong signal to the Israeli government and its deeply complicit universities that principled academic institutions will no longer stand by. They will instead use their power of moral persuasion to hold Israel to account and effect a change in the stagnant status quo of oppression, as was the case during the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa.
Please, uphold the vote in support of our struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Keep our hope in freedom, justice and equality alive.
Sincerely,
The Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE)
February 5, 2019 / By Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE) / United StatesThe Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE) supports the faculty at Pitzer College calling to suspend a complicit study abroad program in Israel over its discriminatory practices.
PFUUPE, which represents more than 6,000 Palestinian university staff at 13 higher education institutions in the occupied Palestinian territory, commends our colleagues at Pitzer College for overwhelmingly supporting this principled stand for Palestinian human rights and for equality.
Most importantly, we thank you for listening to us and acting upon the call from the vast majority of Palestinians, including academics and students, to refrain from business-as-usual academic relations with Israeli institutions while we are forced to live under oppression.
We hold dear the universal right to academic freedom, on principle and because Palestinians are obliged to fight for it every day, along with our right to education.
Our faculty members have, for decades, faced the policy of restricting movement and travel imposed by the Israeli occupation. This severely hampers our academic freedom, namely to reach our campuses, to teach our students, to conduct research, to collaborate with other academics or institutions and to participate in conferences, whether within the occupied Palestinian territory or abroad.
Israel also obstructs importation of academic material and scientific equipment for Palestinian universities, effectively imposing a boycott on our institutions of higher education.
Israel’s discriminatory policies further prevent international academics and students, in particular those of Palestinian/Arab origins or those supporting Palestinian rights, from teaching, studying and attending conferences at our universities. The past two years have seen an uptick in racially- or opinion- based denial of entry to Israel and refusal of visas and visa renewals, a repressive and deeply discriminatory Israeli policy that has long been customary.
Israel has repeatedly bombed Palestinian schools and universities in Gaza, and its illegal and brutal siege has denied the two million Palestinians there, including hundreds of thousands of students, their basic right to freedom of movement. Israel’s decade-old siege of Gaza is making it uninhabitable, according to the UN.
Palestinian students and faculty in the Israeli-occupied West Bank also face campus raids with Israeli soldiers firing live munitions and tear gas.
Palestinian citizens of Israel are subjected to Israel’s institutionalized racism, while Palestinian students face repressive restrictions on political activities and Palestinian educational facilities are underfunded.
We ask the Pitzer College community to try to imagine what it is like studying, teaching or performing research under these dire conditions of racism, repression and violent oppression.
As long as Israel continues to deny Palestinian human rights and academic freedom and impose discriminatory policies based on origins and political opinion, students, educators and academic institutions have a moral obligation and an ethical responsibility to ensure their campus is not contributing in any way to denying Palestinians our right to education and life.
We urge the Pitzer College Council to uphold the principled stand taken by an overwhelming majority of its faculty not to be complicit in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights and its blatantly racist and anti-democratic discriminatory policies.
Doing so will send a strong signal to the Israeli government and its deeply complicit universities that principled academic institutions will no longer stand by. They will instead use their power of moral persuasion to hold Israel to account and effect a change in the stagnant status quo of oppression, as was the case during the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa.
Please, uphold the vote in support of our struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Keep our hope in freedom, justice and equality alive.
Sincerely,
The Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE)
