[Mb-civic] boycott of Israeli University

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Here is another revealing window, from intrepid Israeli journalist and peace 
activist Uri Avnery, into the mindsets of the Israel/Palestine troubles...


Gush Shalom
pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033
www.gush-shalom.org

You brought the boycott upon yourselves

Gush Shalom letter to Bar Ilan University

Tel-Aviv, April 26, 2005

To Professor Moshe Kaveh
President
Bar Ilan University

Dear Sir

In various media interviews today you expressed anger at the decision of
British university lecturers to declare a boycott against the Bar-Ilan
University, calling it "an unacceptable mixing of politics into academic
life". When asked about the "Judea and Samaria College" which your
university maintains at the settlement of Ariel, you stated that this was
"an entirely non-political issue" and that said college was nothing more
than "the largest of five colleges which Bar Ilan maintains at different
locations in Israel". Indeed, you declared yourself and your colleagues to
be proud of the decision to establish the Ariel college, and you felt no
contradiction between continuing to maintain that college, at the
investment of a considerable part of Bar Ilan's total resources, and the
maintenance of extensive ties with universities worldwide, including in
Britain.

As an example you mentioned your own ties as a physicist with Cambridge
University and your plans to spend some time at Cambridge this summer -
plans which, as you stated, remain unchanged also in the wake of the
British lecturers' decision.

Surely, a person of your intelligence and experience can be expected to
note the obvious contradictions in the above position. As you well know,
Ariel is not "a location in Israel". Rather, Ariel is a location in a
territory under military occupation, a territory which is not and has
never been part of the state of Israel. Moreover, Ariel is a special kind
of location: it is an armed enclave, created by armed force and dependent
for its continued existence on force, and force alone.

The creation of Ariel is a severe violation of international law,
specifically of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which specifically forbids
an occupying power from transferring and settling its own citizens in the
occupied territory. On the ground, the creation and maintenance of Ariel
entailed and continues to entail untold hardships to the Palestinians who
happen to live in the nearby town of Salfit and in numerous villages a
long distance all around. Palestinian inhabitants are exposed to ongoing
confiscation of their land so as to feed the land hunger of the
ever-expending Ariel settlement, and their daily life are subjected to
increasingly stringent travel limitations in the name of "preserving the
settlers' security".

The government-approved plans to extend the "Separation Fence" so as to
create a corridor linking Ariel to the Israeli border necessitate the
confiscation of yet more vast tracts of Palestinian land, depriving
thousands of villagers of their sole source of livelihood. Moreover,
should the Ariel corridor be completed, it would cut deeply through the
territory which the international community earmarked for creation of a
Palestinian state, depriving that state of territorial continuity and
viability. For that reason, the plan aroused widespread international
opposition, not least from the United States, our main ally on the
international arena.

In all of this the Bar Ilan University, of which you are president, made
itself a major partner - indeed, since a violation of international law is
involved, the term "accomplice" may well be used. The "Judea and Samaria
College" which you and your colleagues established and nurtured has a
central role in the settlement of Ariel, increasing its population and its
economic clout. The college's faculty and students are prime users of the
"Trans-Samaria Road", the four-lane highway which was created on
confiscated Palestinian land in order to provide quick transportation to
Ariel. The Palestinian villagers on whose land this highway was built are
excluded from using it. They are relegated to a rugged, bumpy mountain
trail.

It is you and your colleagues, Professor Kaveh, who started mixing
academics with politics. A very heavy mixture, such as few universities
anywhere ever engaged in. You cannot really complain when people in
Britain, who have different standards for what is the proper moral
behavior of academics (or for human beings in general) take action which
you do not like. In fact, if you are truly proud of establishing and
maintaining the "Judea and Samaria College", you must have the courage of
your convictions and take the consequences. Much better, of course, would
be for you and your colleagues to sever your connection with the
ill-conceived settlement project - and than you can quite rightly demand
that the boycott be removed from your university.

Yours

Uri Avnery
Gush Shalom (The Israeli Peace Bloc)

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