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To
boldly go
Haifa University academic Ilan Pappe is one of the few Israelis supporting
the university
boycott of Israel. Here he explains why
Wednesday April 20, 2005
Guardian Unlimited
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,9959,1464207,00.html I appeal to you today to be part of a historical movement and moment that
may bring an end to more than a century of colonisation, occupation and
dispossession of Palestinians. I appeal to you as an Israeli Jew, who for
years wished, and looked, for other ways to bring an end to the evil
perpetrated against the Palestinians in the occupied territories, inside
Israel and in the refugee camps. I devoted all my adult life, with others,
creating a substantial peace movement inside Israel, in which, so we
hoped, academia will play a leading role. But after 37 years of endless
brutal and callous oppression of the people of the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip and after 57 years of colonisation and dispossession of the
Palestinians as a whole, I think this hope is unrealistic and other means
have to be looked at to end a conflict that endangers peace in the world
at large.
Violence and armed struggle have also failed, and they can't be easily
condoned by people like myself who are basically pacifists at heart.
Historical examples, such as in South Africa and Gandhi's movement in
India, prove that there are peaceful means for achieving an end to the
longest oppression and violation of human rights in the last century.
Boycotts and outside pressure have never been attempted in the case of
Israel, a state that wishes to be included in the civilised democratic
world. Israel has indeed enjoyed such a status since its creation in 1948
and, therefore, succeeded in fending off the many United Nations'
resolutions that condemned its policies and, moreover, managed to obtain a
preferential status in the European Union. Israeli academia's elevated
position in the global scholarly community epitomises this western support
for Israel as the "only democracy" in the Middle East. Shielded by this
particular support for academia, and other cultural media, the Israeli
army and security services can go on, and will go on, demolishing houses,
expelling families, abusing citizens and killing, almost every day,
children and women without being accountable regionally and globally for
their crimes.
Military and financial support to Israel is significant in enabling the
Jewish state to pursue the policies it does. Any possible measure of
decreasing such aid is most welcome in the struggle for peace and justice
in the Middle East. But the cultural image in Israel feeds the political
decision in the west to support unconditionally the Israeli destruction of
Palestine and the Palestinians. The message that will be directed
specifically against those academic institutes which have been
particularly culpable in sustaining the oppression since 1948 and the
occupation since 1967, can be a start for a successful campaign for peace
(as similar acts at the time had activated the anti-apartheid movement in
South Africa).
Calling for a boycott of your own state and academia is not an easy
decision for a member of that academia. But I learned how the concerned
academic communities, worldwide, could mobilise at the right moment when I
was threatened with expulsion by my own university, the University of
Haifa, in May 2002. A very precise and focused policy of pressure on the
university allowed me, albeit under restriction and systematic harassment,
to purse my classes and research, which are aimed at exposing the
victimisation of the Palestinians throughout the years. This is a
particular important avenue, as I am the only one who does it in my own
university, and one of the few who does it in the country as a whole, and
also because the university has a large community of Palestinian students,
who are prevented by draconian regulations from expressing their anger and
frustration at what had been, and is, done against their people. These
students have felt totally isolated since the university established close
links with the security apparatuses in the country. The fact that the
university is closely connected to the security services - by providing
postgraduate degrees - is by itself not a crime, but as these are the
agencies that exercise on a daily basis the occupation in the Palestinian
areas, their presence in the campus means academia is significantly
involved in perpetuating the evil.
As I learned from my own case, outside pressure is effective in a country
where people want to be regarded as part of the civilized world, but their
government, with their explicit and implicit help, pursues policies which
violate every known human and civil right. Neither the UN, nor the US and
European governments, and societies, have sent a message to Israel that
these policies are unacceptable and have to be stopped. It is up to the
civil societies, through organisations like yours, to send messages to
Israeli academics, businessmen, artists, hi-tech industrialists and every
other section in that society, that there is a price tag attached to such
policies.
I thank you in advance for your support. Should you decide to embark on
the bold policy suggested, you empower me and my friends who will, I am
convinced of this, be able to build together with our Palestinian comrades
a just basis for peace and reconciliation in Palestine.
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-- Ilan Pappe is senior lecturer in the department of political science in
Haifa University and the chairman of the Emil Touma institute for
Palestinian studies in Haifa. |