[Fdu] Fwd: Gaza, the academic boycott, and international military embargo on Israel

[Peter Fitting]

* * * * * * * * * *

*July 13, 2014*

*Open Letter to Israeli Academics*

*Dear Friends,**
*These are desperately bad times. The government of Israel, having 
provoked the firing of rockets by its rampage through the West Bank, is 
now using that response as the pretext for an aerial assault on Gaza 
which has already cost scores of lives. An atmosphere of hysteria is 
being deliberately provoked in Israel, and whole communities are being 
subject to collective punishment, a war crime. People are dying, and for 
what? To prevent a unity government of Fatah and Hamas?


We have been asked by our academic colleagues in Gaza - whose 
universities have been destroyed a number of times in the last six 
years, who are unable to teach or study, and who are also in growing 
need of food and medicines, like the rest of the almost two million 
Palestinians living in Gaza - to urge you to act urgently, to make your 
voice heard in Israel and abroad against what the Israeli government is 
inflicting on the Gaza population. More than 533 people have been killed 
already in Gaza by the IDF since the start of the Israeli operation on 
July 7th, 2014, and the number will be bigger by the time you read this 
message. Most of these people are children, women and the elderly. There 
could be no credible claim made that these people were involved in any 
military activity whatsoever. The Gaza infrastructure, already in 
tatters, is now further undermined, and the population is in the worst 
situation it has ever been, and this is getting worse by the minute. 
These atrocities, committed by Israel will bring neither peace nor 
security to the region, and can only lead to further deterioration of 
the already dangerous situation in Palestine/Israel.


We invite you, as fellow academics and intellectuals, to join your 
voices in an open and resounding protest about these war crimes by the 
Israeli government – your government. We urge you to stand up and be 
counted, to answer the call of your Gazan colleagues and make your voice 
heard. We hope that you will be able and willing to come together and 
voice your total opposition to the war crimes committed in your name! We 
realize you may feel worried and lonely, as dissent in Israel now 
carries a high price. We stand with you when you take this conscientious 
stand.


*International signatures
*Dr. Ahdaf Sueif, Cairo and UK
John Berger, France
Angela Davis, USA
Naomi Klein, Canada
Prof. Richard Falk, Princeton University, USA
Prof. Etienne Balibar, Paris-Nanterre, France and Kingston University, UK
Dr. (Baroness) Jenny Tonge, House of Lords, UK
Prof. Noam Chomsky, MIT, USA
Prof. Michael Rosen, Goldsmiths, UK
Prof. Haim Bresheeth, SOAS, UK
Prof. Moshé Machover, KCL, UK
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown MBE, UK
Prof. Marina Warner, Essex University, UK
Prof. Yosefa Loshitzky, SOAS, UK
Prof. Hagit Borer, QMU, UK
Prof. Sir Patrick Bateson, UK
Prof. Nira Yuval-Davis, UEL, UK
Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead, LSE, UK
Prof. Ronit Lentin, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Prof. Nur Masalha, UK
Prof. Yigal Arens, USA
Prof. Laura Mulvey, Birkbeck College, UK
Prof. Andrew Ross, NYU, USA
Prof. Terri Ginsberg, USA
Prof. Hamid Dabashi, USA
Dr. Ghada Karmi, Exeter University, London, UK
Prof. Stephen Deutsch, University of Bournemouth, UK
Prof. Sara Roy, Harvard University, USA

And 1200 more signatories; to see the whole list, go to: 
http://haimbresheeth.com/gaza/an-open-letter-to-israel-academics-july-13th-2014/

-----------------

*To receive announcements from Faculty 4 Palestine*, send an email to 
fac4pal at gmail.com <mailto:fac4pal at gmail.com>

*To follow F4P on Facebook, please "Like" our page at:*

https://www.facebook.com/FacultyForPalestine?ref=hl


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://listserv.physics.utoronto.ca/pipermail/fdu/attachments/20140726/4528a6e9/attachment.html