The Islamic University of Gaza bombed by Israeli F16 warplanes, August 02, 2014. (Photo: Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Nazmi Al-Masri on August 12, 2014 Over the one-year period from July 2013 to July 2014, I was supposed to participate in six international academic conferences and meetings as a partner in four international projects: three EU-funded projects (two from Erasmus-Mundus, one Tempus) and one BritishArts and Humanities Research Council-funded project. Because of the siege and the current war, I could not participate in any of these academic gatherings, which were held in the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Jordan, and Cyprus.
More than 1,000 professionals have signed a manifesto, released by the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) academic campaign for Palestine, demanding to end all institutional relations with the Israeli academic world, until it stops supporting occupation and apartheid in Palestine. The campaign, which started two years ago, asks for support from professionals from the academic and scientific field, and also from associations linked to this field, such as student’s and worker’s unions, research centres, professional associations, etc.
MARTIN SHAW 31 July 2014 The latest Israeli assault on Gaza is for one scholar an occasion to rethink the fundamental arguments for and against a boycott of the country. Israel’s slaughter in Gaza must make us all pause and ask whether we should rethink our stance on the Palestine conflict. The killing is presented as a regrettable response to Hamas’s provocations, an almost routine police action as the Israeli euphemism "
'Now with the evidence of new war crimes there for all to see, Israel's isolation will only increase, and, despite the predictable backlash, Palestine solidarity campaigning will take a significant step forward.' Ben White Friday, 08 August 2014 16:58 "Carnage" in Gaza – "the killing of children and the slaughter of civilians". Not the words of a Palestinian spokesperson but rather French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Australia's FM Julie Bishop condemned what she called "
By launching a cyberwar. Anonymous — the faceless hacker collective best known for harrasing several American credit card companies, the Westboro Baptist Church and the Church of Scientology — has launched an aggressive assault on the Israeli government for their ongoing ground campaign in the Gaza Strip. And in true Anonymous fashion, they aren't hiding it — they're flaunting it. On July 20, Anonymous announced their plans to "
By Juan Cole This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page. The ill-considered and remarkably brutal Gaza war likely will give further impetus to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement by Western civil society to pressure Israel on its illegal actions toward the Palestinians. A thoroughgoing such European set of sanctions could cost Israel as much as $5 bn a year and more. Roughly a third of Israeli trade is with Europe, and the EU is Israel’s largest single trading partner.
Islamic University of Gaza, bombed by Israel 2 August 2014 Omar Robert Hamilton 6 August 2014 LRB Blog We pulled up to the shining blue facade of the main hall of the Islamic University in Gaza in the summer of 2012. The Palestine Festival of Literature was running a seminar and an afternoon of workshops with students from the Arabic and English departments. Jamal Mahjoub, Selma Dabbagh and Amr Ezzat spoke to a packed auditorium of around 200 students, mostly young women, all veiled.
Rasha Faek, Yousef Al-Helou and Thaer Thabet / 03 Aug 2014 At least two universities, seven United Nations schools and an estimated 141 locally run schools have suffered severe damage in the month-long war between Israel and Hamas. Israeli missiles hit the Islamic University of Gaza early on Saturday, destroying a major building on the campus but apparently not killing anyone. In a July 29 attack at the north Gaza branch of Al Quds Open University, 22 people were killed, apparently students.
The Israeli government has already proven that it fears international isolation YARA HAWARI Wednesday 30 July 2014 Israel has lost its grip on reality. The death toll in Gaza stands at well over a thousand and continues to rise by the day. The coastal strip has been reduced to rubble. Rather than celebrating Eid this week, Palestinians in Gaza have been burying their dead. Jon Snow’s poignant message after his return from Gaza on Channel 4 news was heart-breaking.
31 July 2014 As we write this statement, 25 days after the brutal incursion on Gaza, over a thousand and four hundred of innocent civilian women, men and children have been butchered by Israel’s war machine and much more are threatened to be killed. The call for raping Palestinian women by the so-called “Bar-Illan University Arabic Literature Professor” teaches us, once again, that Israeli “scholars” and “academic institutions” are an organic and integral part of the Zionist colonial project.
