Belgian Academics & Artists For Palestine
 

 
 
Belgian Academics For Palestine (BA4P)
Calls, Reports & Statements  --- Analyses & Comments  --- Israel Scholasticide (*)
Academic Bulletin N° 16 (February 2023): click here! ── BACBI Culture, Newsletter N° 74 (Winter 2022): click here!
Solidarité avec la Palestine: Notre engagement
Nous, universitaires et autres intellectuels vivant en Belgique, sommes pleinement solidaires du peuple palestinien et de sa résistance courageuse contre les politiques colonialistes de dépossession, de remplacement et de destruction de la société, la culture et la nature de la Palestine par l’État d’Israël. La violence meurtrière quotidienne des soldats israéliens qui s'accroit de jour en jour contre une population civile, enfants compris, est un crime contre l'humanité insupportable. Avec l'arrivée au pouvoir de partis extrémistes, voire fascistes, en Israël, ces politiques dégénéreront davantage, si c’est encore possible.
Nous nous engageons à intervenir aupres des institutions académiques et culturelles et de faire pression sur les autorités belges et européennes pour qu'elles émettent des résolutions et prennent des sanctions à l’encontre de l'Etat d'Israël pour ses violations, depuis des décennies, des conventions internationales relatives aux droits de l'homme, et son refus de se conformer aux résolutions de l'ONU et aux arrêts de la Cour internationale de justice.
Il faut fustiger, ici, explicitement les scandaleuses stratégies israéliennes de " scholasticide ", telles que les démolitions d'écoles et le harcèlement des élèves et leurs enseignants, le vandalisme des archives et des bibliothèques des centres de recherche et d'étude, les intrusions dans les campus, ou l'enlèvement et l'emprisonnement de directeurs, de professeurs et d'étudiants. Enfin la "Procédure pour l'entrée et la résidence des étrangers en Judée et Samarie," officiellement instituée par l'armée d’occupation à partir d'octobre de l'année dernière, n’est pas la moindre à devoir être condamnée. Imposant une occupation académique sur les Palestiniens, elle restreint drastiquement l'entrée de professeurs, chercheurs et étudiants étrangers, isolant ainsi les universités palestiniennes de la recherche et la formation scientifiques internationales. Les développements futurs de la recherche et de l’enseignement sont délibérément compromis par ce régime d’apartheid ouvertement raciste et colonialiste, étouffant ainsi les opportunités des futures générations palestiniennes.
Solidariteit met Palestina: Ons Engagement
Wij, academici en andere intellectuelen die in België wonen, zijn ten volle solidair met het Palestijnse volk en zijn moedig verzet tegen Israëls kolonialistische politiek van verdrijving, vervanging en vernietiging van Palestina’ samenleving, cultuur en natuur. Het dagelijkse, zelfs toenemende, moorddadige geweld van Israëls soldateska tegen een weerloze burgerbevolking, met inbegrip van haar kinderen, vormt een barbaars regime van misdaden tegen de menselijkheid.
Wij verbinden ons ertoe te lobbyen bij academische en culturele instellingen en Belgische en Europese politieke gezagdragers en vertegenwoordigers ertoe aan te zetten resoluties en sancties uit te vaardigen tegen de staat Israël wegens decennialange schendingen van de internationale mensenrechtenverdragen en weigering om VN-resoluties en uitspraken van het Internationaal Gerechtshof na te leven.
Dient hier expliciet aan de kaak te worden gesteld: Israël's kwaadaardige politiek van "scholasticide", zoals: slopen van scholen en intimideren van leerlingen en leerkrachten, vandaliseren van kantoren en bibliotheken van onderzoeks- en studiecentra, binnendringen in campussen, en gevangenzetting van directeurs, professoren en studenten. 'Last but not least,' was er in oktober vorig jaar de uitvaardiging van een uitgebreide (97p.) "Procedure voor binnenkomst en verblijf van buitenlanders in de regio Judea en Samaria." Terecht als een vorm van 'academische bezetting' van de Palestijnen bestempeld, stelt zij meer dan ooit verregaande beperkingen op toegang en verblijf op de Westoever van buitenlandse professoren, onderzoekers en studenten. Zij strekt ertoe Palestina’s universiteiten, academici en studenten te isoleren van het internationale wetenschappelijk onderzoek en onderwijs en hypothekeert toekomstige wetenschappelijke ontwikkelingen in Palestina. De opportuniteiten die wetenschappelijk onderzoek en onderwijs te bieden zouden hebben aan de toekomstige generaties, worden op die manier in de kiem gesmoord.
Solidarity with Palestine: Our Engagement
We, academics and other intellectuals living in Belgium, stand in full solidarity with the Palestinian people and their courageous resistance against Israel's settler-colonialist policies of dispossession, replacement and destruction of Palestine's society, culture and nature. The daily murderous violence perpetrated by Israel's soldiers against a civilian population, children included, constitutes a barbaric regime of crimes against humanity.
We commit ourselves to lobbying academic and cultural institutions and inducing Belgian and European authorities and representatives to adopt resolutions and sanctions against the State of Israel for its decades-long violations of international human rights conventions and its refusal to comply with UN resolutions and rulings of the International Court of Justice.
Must be castigated, here, explicitly: Israel's nefarious policies of 'scholasticide', such as demolitions of schools and harrasment of pupils and teachers, the vandalising of archives and libraries of research and study centres, intrusion of campuses, abduction and imprisonment of scholars and students. Last but not least to be condemned, is the "Procedure for entry and residence of foreigners in the Judea and Samaria area," issued in October last year by Israel's ministry of Defense. Imposing what has been called an 'academic occupation' of the Palestinians, it drastically restricts the entry of foreign professors, researchers and students, isolating, that way, Palestinian universities and their academics and students from existing international scholarship and practices. Future developments in Palestine in research and learning are willfully compromised, that way, by a colonialist, racist-instituted apartheid regime - stifling thus the life opportunities they would offer to Palestine's future generations.
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« The Thugs Take Over The Knesset »
(Jewish Voice for Labour, December 29, 2022):
We all know a bit about the fanaticism of Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionism party and Itamar Ben Gvir of Jewish Power. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Nate Orbach, writing in +972 Magazine (29 December 2022), introduces us to a motley assortment of other racist rogues and villains who will be joining them in making life hell for Palestinians in Israel and under occupation, for gays, asylum seekers, and leftwing or liberal Israelis. Their first aim is to override the Supreme Court’s ability to act as a restraint on the unbridled power of the current majority. After that anything is possible as a narrow-minded religious fundamentalism and unrestrained ethno-nationalism seeks to entrench itself in permanence.
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Calls, Reports, Statements...:

« A generation under blockade: New report examines life in Gaza after 17 years of Israeli restrictions »
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor (January 20, 2023). Report (pdf, 29p.): click here!
Geneva - The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip remains dire as the 17th year of the Israeli blockade draws to a close, said Euro-Med Monitor in a statement, urging all concerned parties to put pressure on Israel to end its illegal blockade of the Strip. In its annual report on the blockade, entitled “A generation under blockade,” Euro-Med Monitor noted that the Israeli blockade has impoverished more than 61% of Gaza’s total population of about two million and 380 thousand people. Moreover, it has disrupted the work of approximately 47% of workers and left nearly 53% of the population facing food insecurity.

« Israel is back at the International Court of Justice»
David Kattenburg (Mondoweiss, December 31, 2022):
Eighteen years after the ICJ's 2004 Advisory Opinion on the legality of the separation wall, the ICJ is now weighing in on the legality of the occupation itself, despite Israel's attempts to stall the vote. It was a vote Israel and the US moved heaven and earth to stall, but that took place anyway, with timing that couldn’t have been more apt. On the evening of December 30, two days after a declaration by the incoming government of Benjamin Netanyahu that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” including the illegally annexed Syrian Golan Heights and “Judea and Samaria,” the UN General Assembly passed a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to render an Advisory Opinion on the legality of Israel’s 55-year occupation of the Palestinian West Bank.

« Joint Statement: 86 Human Rights and Civil Society Organisations, and Academic Institutions Condemn Israel’s Targeted Smear Campaign
Against Respected UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese »
Al-Haq - Defending Human Rights (December 24, 2022, pdf, 220p.) :
On 14 December 2022, Israel’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva smeared the respected and eminent UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, in a direct attempt to attack and undermine the mandate she has been entrusted with and thwart her expert human rights work on Palestine. The statement which contains baseless accusations of antisemitism, raises concerns about the “impunity that exists today regarding antisemitism and antisemitic comments made by UN officials”.

Landmark Palestinian Coalition Report: « Israeli Apartheid - Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism »
Al-Haq - Defending Human Rights (November 29, 2022, pdf, 220p.) :
Together, leading Palestinian civil society organisations, Al-Haq - Law in the Service of Man (Al-Haq), Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association (Addameer), Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights (Al Mezan), Al-Quds University ‘Community Action Center’ (CAC), the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC), the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), ​and the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ), in this report explore Israel’s settler colonial and apartheid regime imposed on the Palestinian people...

 
 
Analyses & Comments :
  • Ramzy BAROUD: "It Has Always Been a 'Religious War': On Ben Gvir and the Adaptability of Zionism" (The Palestine Chronicle, January 18, 2023): click here!
    The Zionists, whether ‘political Zionists’ like Theodore Hertzl or ‘Spiritual Zionists’ like Ahad Ha’am’ - and now Netanyahu and Ben Gvir - have all used the Jewish religion to achieve the same end, colonizing all historic Palestine and ethnically cleansing its native population. Sadly, major part of this sinister mission has been achieved, though Palestinians continue to resist with the same ferocity of their ancestors.

  • Ilan PAPPE: "Ilan Pappe on the Socio-Political Formations behind Israel’s Neo-Zionist Government” (The Palestine Chronicle, January 6, 2023): click here!
    Two months after the election of the new government of Israel, the blurred picture is becoming more transparent, and it seems one can offer some more informed insights about its composition, personalities, and possible future policies and reaction to them. It would not be an exaggeration to define Benjamin Netanyahu as the least extreme member of this government, which tells you about the personalities and policies of all the others.  There are three major groups in the government, and I am not referring here to various political parties, but rather to socio-political formations.
 
 
Dossier: "Academics Against Israel Scholasticide"
  • “Scholasticide” – the systematic destruction by Israeli forces of centres of education" (RIGHT2EDUCATION, Birzeit University, January 10, 2009): click here!
    A new word emerged from the carnage in Gaza this week: “scholasticide” – the systematic destruction by Israeli forces of centres of education dear to Palestinian society, as the ministry of education was bombed, the infrastructure of teaching destroyed, and schools across the Gaza strip targeted for attack by the air, sea and ground offensives. “Learn, baby, learn” was a slogan of the black rights movement in America’s ghettoes a generation ago, but it also epitomises the idea of education as the central pillar of Palestinian identity – a traditional premium on schooling steeled by occupation, and something the Israelis “cannot abide… and seek to destroy”, according to Dr Karma Nabulsi, who teaches politics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
  • Nick RIEMER: “Scholasticide: The Relentless Attack on Palestinian Universities" (The Wire, January 1, 2019): click here!
    Israel’s efforts to cripple higher education in occupied Palestine continued relentlessly in 2018, with Israeli universities acting as key tools of the occupation. The systematic punishment inflicted on Palestinian academics and students didn’t attract anything like the global attention of Gazans’ March of Return, but it deserves to be documented and organised against for what it is: a slow, sadistic crushing of learning, and a stifling of the life opportunities it provides. A selection of the manifestations of this “scholasticide,” all drawn from local reports, is catalogued in this article, along with some brief indications of Israeli universities’ collaboration in it. This suggests the full violence of Israel’s siege on higher education in Palestine – and the urgent necessity of an effective response on the part of people of good conscience around the world, including those who work in universities.

  • Shahd SAFI: « In Gaza, Students’ Heavy Endeavors are Going in Vain » (The Palestine Chronicle, November 25, 2022): click here!
    From the 1948 Nakba, the Naksa of 1967 to now, many Palestinians have been forced to live as refugees, facing dire social and financial difficulties. Education is their only hope for survival. But so many families can’t afford the expenses associated with college and university.
  • Kadoorie University Denounces Israeli Occupation’s Violation Inside its Campus in Tulkarem (AURDIP, November 20, 2022): click here!
    The administration of Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie (PTUK) denounces and strongly condemns the Israeli Occupation forces’ desecrating actions, disrespecting its sanctity and forcing the university staff to open the main gates and the cameras control room to drag out certain records and photocopied clips.
  • Committee on Academic Freedom: « COGAT regulations’ impact on international scholar selection » (MESA, October 20, 2022): click here!
    Letter sent on 20 October 2022 to:  Israel PM Yair Lapid, Minister of Education Yifat Shasha-Biton, Minister of Justice Gideon Sa'ar, Brigadier-General Ghasan Alyan, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Chief Clerk Idit Malul, Supreme Court of the State of Israel.
  • Yumna Patel & Michael Arria: « Israeli restrictions on foreign travel into occupied West Bank take effect despite criticisms » (Mondoweiss, October 20, 2022): click here!
    A draconian set of Israeli restrictions on foreign travel into the occupied West Bank take effect today, despite months of condemnations by rights groups and legal efforts to stop them.
  • Awdah Hathaleen: "In Masafer Yatta, teachers like me can’t guarantee our students an education" (+972, November 15, 2022): click here!
    With schools facing demolition orders and soldiers detaining students and teachers for hours, obstacles to education are becoming insurmountable.
  • Hamoked Center for the Defence of the Individual: "New Israeli Procedure on Entry of Foreigners to the West Bank" (Briefing paper Sept 2022): click here!
    Interference with Palestinian Civil Society and Academic Freedom: In the new procedure, the Israeli Defense Ministry gives itself the prerogative to set academic qualifications for lecturers. Faculty and student visas can only be renewed for a maximum of 27 months, and then a person would have to leave the West Bank before applying for a new visa. There is no possibility to offer tenure to foreign faculty, as after a cumulative stay of five years, a foreign lecturer must remain abroad for nine months before they can re-enter the West Bank... It should also be noted that this procedure would not apply to foreigners who wish to travel to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. For example, foreign lecturers and students at Ariel University in the Ariel settlement will continue to be governed by the much more lenient regulations set by Israel’s Ministry of Interior.
  • Maureen Clare Murphy: "“Racial engineering” behind Israel’s new West Bank entry restrictions" (The Electronic Intifada, 26 Sept, 2022): click here!
    The 97-page procedure serves Israel’s “racial engineering” of the population in the West Bank “within the framework of its apartheid regime, which constitutes a crime against humanity,” according to a coalition of Palestinian human rights groups... Those seeking to work or study in the West Bank “must apply for an entry visa 45, 60, or even up to 153 days before arrival as well as provide an extensive questionnaire on their CV [resume], and any familial or spousal connections in the West Bank,” according to the coalition of rights groups.
  • Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC): "International Community Must Take Prompt and Concrete Measures to Halt Israel’s New Procedure for Entry and Residence of Foreigners in the West Bank" (Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, 8 Sept, 2022): click here!
    The Israeli occupying authorities have imposed further restrictions on the entry of foreign nationals and Palestinians who hold foreign passports and wish to work, volunteer, join their Palestinian family members or act in solidarity with the Palestinian people in the oPt. The constraints of the new procedure, which was published on 4 September 2022 and will enter into force on 20 October 2022, also apply to foreign nationals whose work requires that they stay for any length of time in the West Bank (excluding occupied Jerusalem).

Continue (July 2022-2005): click here!

 
 

Coordinating Committee:
Prof. Karel Arnaut (KU Leuven), Em. Prof. Marie-Christine Closon (UCLouvain), Em. Prof. Patrick Deboosere (VUB), Prof. Lieven De Cauter (KU Leuven), Em. Prof. Herman De Ley (UGent), Em. Prof. Marc De Meyere (UGent), Prof. Serge Deruette (UMONS), Lieve Franssen (dirigent Brussels Brecht-Eislerkoor), Em. Prof. Michel Gevers (UCLouvain), Carl Gydé (directeur CAMPO), Em. Prof. Madeline Lutjeharms (VUB), Em. Prof. Perrine Humblet (ULB), Em. Prof. Marc Jacquemain (Université de Liège), Raven Ruëll (régisseur), Dr. Nozomi Takahashi (UGent), Prof. Karin Verelst (VUB/RITCS).
Contact: click here.
 
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