Newsletter Archive:.
 PACBI Newsletter
  April 2013 www.pacbi.org  
 

Belgian French-speaking students Federation calls for academic boycott of Israel!

 

“The FEF calls for a freeze of all academic partnerships with Israeli academic institutions!” The French-speaking Students Federation (FEF) is the biggest student union at the Belgian community level. It represents 100 000 students, from all types of higher education institutions. The FEF already took a stand in 2001 and 2003 concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and on the 14th of April, during the federal council, we obtained an update of the previous note, in order to remind people that the freeze of academic partnerships has a current and essential utility in the struggle for justice.

 The FEF considers it necessary to re-evaluate the existing cooperation agreements between Belgian French-Community universities and Israeli universities. To the Belgian universities, the student union concretely suggests:

 - Intensifying moral and material cooperation with Palestinian universities

- Imposing, in a reasonable period, a freeze of the education and research partnerships existing with the universities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Technion as well as the Weizmann and ICTAF institutions, until those academic authorities take an official stance in favor of the respect of the Palestinian people’s fundamental rights.

- sending a university delegation to meet the Palestinian universities’ authorities in order to express the support of the French-community Universities and making a report at the CIUF and the ARES on the state of education in those institutions

- reaffirming their support and encouraging collaboration between all Israeli progressives and Palestinians who bravely defend the coexistence of two peoples, in the respect of their fundamental rights, reminding that condemning a state’s policy is in no way the same as rejecting a people or its philosophical and religious beliefs.

 This is a new victory for the BDS campaign, and an impetus for all movements calling for an academic boycott on their campus!


 

Palestinian Academics, Teachers and Writers Salute the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI)

We are heartened by the fact that the motion passed at your Congress is unequivocal. Such a clear and principled stand is unprecedented in the several years of academic boycott activism by unions and federations of academics across the world. We are grateful for such principled solidarity.

 
 

Iain Banks: why I'm supporting a cultural boycott of Israel

 “I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign because, especially in our instantly connected world, an injustice committed against one, or against one group of people, is an injustice against all, against every one of us; a collective injury.”

 

UC Berkeley student senate passes divestment bill

 Bill calls the UC system a “complicit third party” in Israel’s “illegal occupation and ensuing human rights abuses” and seeks the divestment of more than $14 million in ASUC and UC assets from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Cement Roadstone Holdings.
 

PACBI EDITORIAL

Palestinians Salute the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) for its Endorsement of the Academic Boycott of Israel

Palestinian academics, students and society at large deeply appreciate and are inspired by this most effective expression of international solidarity that reminds us of similar initiatives taken by academics and academic associations worldwide in the 1980s in support of the academic boycott of South Africa under apartheid.

 

The adoption of this resolution by the General Membership of the AAAS is precedent-setting. This is the first time that a professional association of academics anywhere outside the Arab world adopts such a clear and unequivocal resolution in support of the boycott of Israeli academic institutions due to their entrenched complicity in Israel’s persistent denial of basic Palestinian rights, including the right to education and freedom of movement.

…

The AAAS has proven beyond doubt that effective solidarity with the oppressed is the most morally and politically sound contribution to the struggle to end oppression and to promote human rights and justice. We are certain that this outstanding expression of solidarity and support for the Palestinian BDS movement will galvanize academics across the United States as well as in other countries to issue similar calls for the boycott of the Israeli academy and its complicit institutions.  As in South Africa during apartheid, only by isolating these institutions can there be any chance of ending their complicity in Israel’s multi-tiered system of oppression against the Palestinian people.
 
 

Award winning US artist Pettibon Stands with Cultural Boycott of apartheid Israel

Raymond Pettibon, whose work is displayed in numerous museums and institutions worldwide, has shown support for Palestinians through his apparent support for the cultural boycott of apartheid Israel		      

Sydney Univ. student council endorses academic boycott of Israel

The Student Representative Council (SRC) at the University of Sydney passed a motion this week endorsing Associate Professor Jake Lynch’s academic boycott of Israel.		      

Palestinian civil society condemns normalization film on Jerusalem

The film serves Israel’s political agenda, covering up the reality of Jerusalem as an occupied city where the indigenous Palestinians live under a severe system of apartheid		  
   
 
 
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