Universities across globe urge end to Israel's apartheid against Palestinians

Hundreds of universities and academic institutions in the West have strongly denounced Israel's recent military aggression, stressing that the regime is pursuing a policy of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians.

In an unprecedented wave of solidarity, over 300 academic departments, programs, centers, unions, and societies worldwide endorsed statements in support of Palestinian rights in response to Israel's war and violent attacks this month.

They said that Israel has been committing the crime of "apartheid" by seeking to maintain its domination across the occupied territories.

The academics also censured Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, particularly in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem al-Quds, as well as of Arab Israelis — a term referring to Palestinians who stayed on their land following Israel's creation in 1948.

Similar statements from individual scholars, researchers, university staff, students, and alumni have garnered more than 15,000 signatures.

Most of the statements described Israel’s apartheid regime as the root cause of the violence.

Among the signatories, hundreds of scholars called for pressure on academic institutions to end "complicity and partnership with military, academic, and legal institutions involved in entrenching Israel's policies."

The move came after Israel launched a bloody bombing campaign on Gaza on May 10 after harassment of Palestinians in Jerusalem al-Quds and attempts to steal their lands in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of the city.

The occupying regime announced a unilateral ceasefire on Friday, which was accepted by the Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza with Egyptian mediation.

The Israeli airstrikes killed at least 253 Palestinians, including 66 children and 39 women, and wounded 1948 others, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

During the fighting, Gaza-based resistance factions fired rockets into the occupied territories in response to the Israeli bloodshed, killing 12 people.

US, European academic institutions strongly denounced Israel's recent military aggression

In the United States, 120 studies departments and programs said they "refuse to normalize or accept the United States' financial, military, diplomatic and political role in Palestinian dispossession."

Faculties at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Stanford, Georgetown, City University of New York, and the University of California Berkeley and Davis also issued statements.

The United Educators of San Francisco, representing 6,200 teachers and staff, became the first teachers union to endorse the international anti-Israel movement of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) said decades of "anthropological literature has empirically demonstrated the many forms of structural and everyday violence imposed by the Israeli regime on the Palestinian population" and called on the US government to take a stand.

In the Netherlands, more than 40 university departments and programs as well as museums and cultural centers affirmed their "responsibility to speak out" against Israel's human rights violations.

Nearly 600 academics in the Netherlands pledged to support the boycott of complicit Israeli universities.

In Belgium, two dozen academic departments, research groups, unions, student organizations, and 1,300 faculty and staff members at Ghent University recommended support for the boycott of and sanctions against Israel.

In the United Kingdom, 1600 faculty members, staff, students, and alumni urged the University of Cambridge to "sever formal links and partnerships" with corporations and institutions perpetuating Israel's injustices against Palestinians.

More than 130 anthropologists in Australia called for an end to "Australian collusion" in the "murderous" arms trade with Israel. Some 500 academics across Australia urged the government to suspend military cooperation and re-evaluate trade agreements with Israel.

National Tertiary Education Union branches at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales passed motions by overwhelming majorities calling members' attention to the boycott of complicit Israeli academic institutions.

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