Gaza crisis: Hundreds of academics sign letter calling for Irish universities to suspend ties with Israeli institutions

• Published date: 04 November 2023
• Publication title: Irish Times: Web Edition Articles (Dublin, Ireland)

It is a campaign of ethnic cleansing and, according to many experts, genocidal violence

The incursion by Palestinian armed groups on October 7th included criminal attacks against civilians.

But under no circumstances does international law permit the systematic bombardment and collective punishment of civilians in a besieged occupied territory.

The dehumanising language and tropes widely used by Israeli leaders in reference to Palestinians echo those typically associated with genocidal incitement and intent.

In the past three weeks, Israel's military acts have matched those words, killing more than 9,000 Palestinians inside Gaza, including some 3,760 children (more than the annual number of children killed in the rest of the world's armed conflicts combined).

Many more Palestinians are dying from the lack of fuel, water, electricity and medical supplies due to the deliberate blockade. Gaza's hospitals are barely able to function – no power for ventilators, using vinegar as antiseptic, performing surgeries without anaesthetic – and continue to be hit by Israeli airstrikes. The situation is beyond inhumane.

Leading Jewish and Israeli scholars of Holocaust and genocide studies have called this "a textbook case of genocide". Bosnian genocide experts have likewise stated that "what is happening in Gaza is genocide".

After the first week of Israel's onslaught, a group of more than 800 international lawyers and genocide scholars were "compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces", while UN human rights special rapporteurs warned of "the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people", calling on all states and international organisations to fulfil their duties to prevent genocide.

The killing and destruction has only escalated since then. More than 60 UN member states have now used the language of genocide to describe Israel's attacks on Gaza's population. This week, the South African foreign minister referenced the Rwandan genocide and "reminded the international community not to stand idle while another genocide is unfolding".

With the atrocities in Gaza now added to Israel's 75 years of colonisation and occupation of Palestinian lands, there should be nothing remotely approximate to "business as usual" continuing.

Many Irish universities and EU-funded research projects have active collaborations with Israeli universities. Israeli universities are, in the words of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, "major, willing and persistent accomplices in Israel's regime of occupation" and its military infrastructures.

Meanwhile, several Palestinian universities in Gaza have been destroyed by the Israeli airstrikes, with some 70 academics and 2,000 students among the civilians killed.

We call on all universities in Ireland to immediately sever any existing institutional partnerships or affiliations with Israeli institutions. Those ties should be suspended until the occupation of Palestinian territory is ended, the Palestinian rights to equality and self-determination are vindicated, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return is facilitated.

Anything less at this point amounts to tacit support for crimes against humanity. – Yours, etc,

Professor Kathleen Lynch, University College Dublin

Professor Siobhán Wills, Director of the Transitional Justice Institute, Ulster University

Professor Eugenia Siapera, University College Dublin

Professor Emer Nolan, Maynooth University

Professor Laura McAtackney, Radical Humanities Laboratory & Archaeology, University College Cork

Professor Nicholas Daly, University College Dublin

Professor Aoife O'Donoghue, Queen's University Belfast

Professor Derek Doherty, Trinity College Dublin

Professor Gavan Titley Maynooth University

Professor Lionel Pilkington, University of Galway

Professor Karen Till, Maynooth University Department of Geography

Professor Mathias Urban, Dublin City University

Professor Michelle Farrell, School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool

Professor Laurence Cox, Maynooth University

Professor Helena Sheehan, Dublin City University

Professor Mairead Enright, University of Birmingham

Professor Mary Gilmartin, Maynooth University

Professor Padraig McAuliffe, University of Liverpool

Professor Gerry Kearns, Maynooth University

Professor David Storey, University of Worcester

Professor John Fox, University of Magee.

Professor Aoife Daly, University College Cork

Professor Jane Grogan, UCD

Professor Cahal McLaughlin, Queen's University Belfast

Professor Benjamin Dwyer, Middlesex University

Professor Pádraig Carmody, Trinity College Dublin

Professor Alison Forrestal, MRIA

Professor John Barry, Queen's University Belfast

Professor Mark Cassidy, IADT

Professor Ronaldo Munck, DCU

Professor Stewart Smyth, University College Cork

Professor Dominic Bryan, Queen's University Belfast

Professor Pablo Gracia, Trinity College Dublin

Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin, University of the Highlands and Islands

Dr Aaron Mac Raighne

Dr Abid Yaqoob

Dr Adam Kelly, University College Dublin

Dr Adrian Howlett

Dr Adrian Scahill, Maynooth University

Dr Aidan Kenny

Dr Aileen Kennedy, Technological University Dublin

Dr Aileen O'Carroll, Maynooth University

Dr Áine Clancy, University of Liverpool

Dr Aisling Costello, Technological University Dublin

Dr Aisling O'Beirn

Dr Alan Greene, Reader in Constitutional Law and Human Rights, Birmingham Law School

Dr Alanna O'Malley

Dr Alice Panepinto, Queen's University Belfast

Dr Amanda Feery, University of Galway

Dr Amanda Kramer, School of Law, Queen's University Belfast

Dr Amina Adanan, Maynooth University

Dr Ana Ivasiuc, Maynooth University

Dr Andrew Darley

Dr Andrew Forde, Visiting Fellow, Irish Centre for Human Rights

Dr Andrew Gibson

Dr Aneta Stępień

Dr Angela Flynn, UCC

Dr Angelos Bollas, Dublin City University

Dr Anita Ferrara

Dr Ann-Marie Hanlon

Dr Anne Mulhall, School of English, Drama & Film, UCD

Dr Anne Neylon, University of Liverpool

Dr Aoife O'Leary McNeice, University of Exeter

Dr Audrey Bryan, Dublin City University

Dr Barbara O'Toole, Marino Institute of Education

Dr Barraí...