UNESCO: Stop Covering up the Israeli Academy’s Complicity in Occupation and Apartheid
Occupied Ramallah, 11 July 2010 -- The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) condemns the newly announced Master’s program, coordinated by La Sapienza University in Rome, that brings together a Palestinian University, Al Quds, and three Israeli universities, Haifa, Hebrew and Tel Aviv with support from UNESCO and the Italian Development Cooperation (DGCS) in Jerusalem. [1] This latest joint Palestinian-Israeli academic project is a clear violation of the Palestinian criteria for the academic boycott of The Italian Development Cooperation‘s involvement in this project is offensive to Palestinian civil society in general and to the Palestinian academy in particular. In 2007, PACBI issued an appeal to diplomatic missions placed in At a time when the international movement to isolate Israel is gaining ground in response to the escalation of Israel‘s apartheid policies, we at PACBI respectfully urge all diplomatic missions, particularly those based in Jerusalem, to refrain from supporting -- in any form -- Palestinian-Israeli encounters or joint projects that are not explicitly dedicated to ending Israel‘s illegal occupation and other forms of oppression. Such meetings and projects only contribute to the prolongation of injustice by normalizing and thereby legitimizing it, and inadvertently support UNESCO’s persistent promotion of projects with Israeli universities can only help them cover up their historic partnership with the State‘s military and security establishment in planning, justifying and perpetuating UNESCO has a long record of collusion in covering up Earlier, in 2002, during Only three years later, in 2005, UNESCO supported the establishment of the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization (IPSO), placing itself at odds with the decision of the Palestinian Council for Higher Education which has repeatedly rejected "technical and scientific cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli universities."[8] UNESCO’s sponsorship of IPSO also conflicted with the Palestinian call for boycotting Israeli academic institutions which was endorsed by tens of the most important unions, associations and organizations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, including the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees.[9] By blessing IPSO, UNESCO effectively provided an international cover for a thinly veiled Israeli attempt to improve its image, or “brand,” in the world and its status in UN organizations without having to comply with international law or respect UN-sanctioned Palestinian rights. UNESCO’s support for this latest joint Palestinian-Israeli Master’s program, coming weeks after the Flotilla attack and a year and a half after Israel’s massacre in Gaza of over 1,400 Palestinians, predominantly civilians and its destruction of the science building, among others, at the Islamic University along with scores of primary and secondary schools in the Strip, is yet another indicator of the moral failure of the Organization to uphold its ethical principles consistently, without double standard. The purported excuse for such projects, that science and arts should be above politics and that cooperation in these fields brings “peace” closer, is ahistorical; it conflicts with the time-honored logic that has motivated and animated decades of international struggle against academic and cultural complicity in human rights violations. Emanating from an organization that should know better than most from its long history that such a claim is patently false makes it all the more surprising. UNESCO, after all, had the honor of leading the struggle in the UN to isolate South African apartheid in the 70’s and 80’s of the last century [10]. One can only wonder how it now claims to separate science and culture from human rights and thereby colludes in perpetuating Israeli apartheid and colonial oppression. Joint Palestinian-Israeli projects that claim to be apolitical are the most blatantly politicized since they deliberately disregard the context of colonial oppression and misleadingly imply the possibility of achieving peace without addressing the root causes of conflict. Ostensibly apolitical collaborations actually substitute the transient, superficial gestures of peace for the real struggle needed to achieve a just and lasting peace. Consequently, they fail to serve the cause of peace. Israeli academic institutions, with which UNESCO is partnering, are implicated in the structures of domination in many ways, both historically and in the present. They bear substantial responsibility for planning, justifying and perpetuating the state’s colonial and apartheid policies and the consequent dispossession of the Palestinian people. According to the SOAS report: “[T]here is nothing unique about state institutions being implicated in the pursuit of state objectives, including security-related objectives. The tense military mobilisation of Jewish-Israeli society, its constant-war footing, and the closely related knowledge of circles which compose the defence research and development community in this comparatively small country, together amplify the role played by academic institutions in military affairs. TAU, as the largest university in The Alternative Information Centre recently issued a comprehensive study on the Israeli academy’s complicity with the state’s system of oppression against the Palestinian people. Among other important findings, the study states: Israeli universities have adopted this consensus [the legitimacy of the Israeli army actions] by accepting into their ranks former members of the Israeli security services, without regard for the problematic aspects of their possible actions in past positions….. Carmi Gilon’s past as Director of the General Security Services, an organization especially notorious for torture and human rights abuses of Palestinians, and who is accused by various organizations of committing war crimes, did not cause Hebrew University to reconsider appointing him to the post of Vice-President for External Affairs. These appointments of former high-ranking officers in the Israeli security services would seem very natural in the Israeli mainstream context, where they enjoy a great deal of prestige…. [12] A recent announcement by Specific violations aside, PACBI [2] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108 [3] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=208272 [4] The Palestinian Council for Higher Education, composed of heads of Palestinian universities and representatives from the community, has, since the 1990’s, adhered to its principled position of rejecting "technical and scientific cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli universities" until Israel ends its occupation; this position was reiterated in a statement of thanks to the UK academic union NATFHE for adopting the academic boycott of Israel in 2006: http://www.mohe.gov.ps/ENG/news/index.html#7 [5] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1048 [6] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=669 [7] Land Research Center ( [8] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=977 [9] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869 [10] For a listing of the eight UNESCO sponsored seminars and conferences against apartheid [11] http://www.electronicintifada.net/downloads/pdf/090708-soas-palestine-society.pdf [12] http://www.alternativenews.org/images/stories/downloads/Economy_of_the_occupation_23-24.pdf [13] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=11 [14] http://wordpress.haifa.ac.il/?p=2642 (Hebrew). See also: http://www.alternativenews.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2677:haifa-university-proud-to-be-academic-home-of-israeli-security-forces&catid=119:english&Itemid=878 [15] http://bdsmovement.net/files/English-BNC_Position_Paper-Durban_Review.pdf
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[1] http://www.esteri.it/MAE/EN/Sala_Stampa/ArchivioNotizie/Approfondimenti/2010/06/20100624_cooperazione_palestinesi_israeliani.htm
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