Where is the Academic Outrage?

The silence surrounding the bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza is deafening. The double standard of the international academic community is highlighted in the following article by Neve Gordon and Jeff Halper in Counterpunch. As a result of the article, a group of 100 California academics issued a statement opposing the actions of the occupying power and calling for a halt on the attacks against institutions of higher learning and their students. Following the article is a statement by California Scholars for Academic Freedom.
Marilyn.


Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

By NEVE GORDON and JEFF HALPER

Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel’s bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week. Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, who organized the petition, has been silent, as have his co-signatories from Princeton, Northwestern, and Cornell Universities, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most others who signed similar petitions, like the 11,000 professors from nearly 1,000 universities around the world, have also refrained from expressing their outrage at Israel’s attack on the leading university in Gaza. The artfully named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, which organized the latter appeal, has said nothing about the assault.

While the extent of the damage to the Islamic University, which was hit in six separate airstrikes, is still unknown, recent reports indicate that at least two major buildings were targeted, a science laboratory and the Ladies’ Building, where female students attended classes. There were no casualties, as the university was evacuated when the Israeli assault began on Saturday.

Virtually all the commentators agree that the Islamic University was attacked, in part, because it is a cultural symbol of Hamas, the ruling party in the elected Palestinian government, which Israel has targeted in its continuing attacks in Gaza. Mysteriously, hardly any of the news coverage has emphasized the educational significance of the university, which far exceeds its cultural or political symbolism.

Established in 1978 by the founder of Hamas — with the approval of Israeli authorities — the Islamic University is the first and most important institution of higher education in Gaza, serving more than 20,000 students, 60 percent of whom are women. It comprises 10 faculties — education, religion, art, commerce, Shariah law, science, engineering, information technology, medicine, and nursing — and awards a variety of bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Taking into account that Palestinian universities have been regionalized because Palestinian students from Gaza are barred by Israel from studying either in the West Bank or abroad, the educational significance of the Islamic University becomes even more apparent.

Those restrictions became international news last summer when Israel refused to grant exit permits to seven carefully vetted students from Gaza who had been awarded Fulbright fellowships by the State Department to study in the United States. After top State Department officials intervened, the students’ scholarships were restored — though Israel allowed only four of the seven to leave, even after appeals by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “It is a welcome victory — for the students,” opined The New York Times, and “for Israel, which should want to see more of Gaza’s young people follow a path of hope and education rather than hopelessness and martyrdom; and for the United States, whose image in the Middle East badly needs burnishing.”

Notwithstanding the importance of the Islamic University, Israel has tried to justify the bombing. An army spokeswoman told The Chronicle that the targeted buildings were used as “a research and development center for Hamas weapons, including Qassam rockets. … One of the structures struck housed explosives laboratories that were an inseparable part of Hamas’s research-and-development program, as well as places that served as storage facilities for the organization. The development of these weapons took place under the auspices of senior lecturers who are activists in Hamas.”

Islamic University officials deny the Israeli allegations. Yet even if there is some merit in them, it is common knowledge that practically all major American and Israeli universities are engaged in research and development of military applications and receive money from the Pentagon and defense corporations. Weapon development and even manufacturing have, unfortunately, become major projects at universities worldwide — a fact that does not justify bombing them.

By launching an attack on Gaza, the Israeli government has once again chosen to adopt strategies of violence that are tragically akin to the ones deployed by Hamas — only the Israeli tactics are much more lethal. How should academics respond to this assault on an institution of higher education? Regardless of one’s stand on the proposed boycott of Israeli universities, anyone so concerned about academic freedom as to put one’s name on a petition should be no less outraged when Israel bombs a Palestinian university. The question, then, is whether the university presidents and professors who signed the various petitions denouncing efforts to boycott Israel will speak out against the destruction of the Islamic University.

Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and author of Israel’s Occupation (University of California Press, 2008).

Jeff Halper Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and author of An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel (Pluto Press, 2008). He can be reached at jeff@icahd.org.

California Scholars for Academic Freedom

Condemn Bombing of Gaza Educational Institutions

Contacts:

Sondra Hale, 310-836-5121 (UCLA) [sonhale@ucla.edu]

Rabab Abdulhadi, 914-882-3180 (AMED-SFSU) [amed@sfsu.edu]

Sherna Berger Gluck, 310-455-1028 (CSULB) [sbgluck@csulb.edu]

Jess Ghannam, 415-726-3951 (UCSF) [jess.ghannam@ucsf.edu]

CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM (CS4AF), a group of 100 scholars at 20 California institutions of higher learning, condemns in the strongest possible terms the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip that have targeted the Islamic University and other educational sites.

While we decry Israeli war crimes and violations of human rights, and condemn the massive Israeli bombardment of Gaza which has caused hundreds of deaths, as educators in California institutions of higher learning, we are especially appalled at the destruction of educational institutions and student casualties.

On December 27th, Human Rights Watch reported that an Israeli air-to-ground missile struck a group of students leaving the Gaza Training College, adjacent to the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in downtown Gaza City, killing eight students and wounding 19 others. Two days later, on 29 December 2008, Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, destroying the science laboratory block and destroying or damaging other blocks of buildings, including the library. Although Israel has claimed that the science laboratory facilities were used as “a research and development center for Hamas weapons,” this claim has been denied by officials of Gaza Islamic University, and according to the NY Times of 01/01/09 Israel has not produced any evidence for its claim.

These direct assaults on Palestinian students and educational institutions are only the latest chapter in Israel’s ongoing denial of the right to education guaranteed in international conventions. Since the first uprising in 1987, Israel has systematically frustrated or denied Palestinian students their right to study, not just in the Occupied Territories, but at universities abroad, as most recently demonstrated by the Israeli government's refusal to allow students awarded prestigious Fulbright fellowships to leave for the United States. University students living in Gaza have not been able to leave in order to attend universities throughout the world, let alone Birzeit University, and students in the West Bank itself have to negotiate roadblocks and checkpoints to get to their classes – often never making it.

The background to the current crisis is too complicated to detail in a press release. It is, however, important to note, first, that under international law, Israel is still an occupying power, maintaining control of Gaza’s borders, air and water space. It has completely isolated Gaza and wrought a humanitarian catastrophe, as noted by UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk. Second, the current bombing campaign by Israel constitutes collective punishment, which is a violation of international law. Third, HAMAS won the majority of seats to the Palestinian Legislative Council in the internationally acknowledged fair election of January, 2006.

As CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM, we will continue to play our mandated role to educate the international public about the right to education and the egregious violation of that right by the Israeli government. We will participate in campaigns aimed at exerting pressure on international authorities and the governments of Israel and the U.S. to implement an immediate cease-fire and begin preparations for an end to the blockade and the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

We insist that Israel has the responsibility to ensure the right to education as mandated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Israel ratified in 1991. The undermining and disruption of Palestinian education as a result of the deliberate destruction of academic facilities constitutes a violation of a basic human right that will have long-term negative political, economic, and humanitarian ramifications for all people involved.

CALIFORNIA SCHOLARS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM is a one-year-old group of 100 academics who teach in 20 California institutions. The group formed as a response to various violations of academic freedom that were arising from both the post-9/11/2001 climate of civil rights violations and the increasing attacks on progressive educators by neo-conservatives. Many attacks were aimed at scholars of Arab, Muslim or Middle Eastern descent or at scholars researching and teaching about the Middle East, Arab and Muslim communities. Our goal of protecting California Scholars based mainly in institutions of higher education has grown broader in scope. We recognize that violations of academic freedom anywhere are threats to academic freedom everywhere.

For statements by other academicians see Neve Gordon and Jeff Halper’s “Targeting Islamic University: Where’s the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?”

http://www.counterpunch.org/gordon12312008.html

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Cluster Bombs

Blackwater, America's Private Army

Blackwater: Blood for Sale

Occupation, Walls of Segregation, and Fuelling Sectarian Conflict: the Crimes of the Powerful Psychopaths

The talk of "escalating" sectarian conflict in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East has become the arguing point between the two criminally minded parties in the U.S., Republicans and Democrats. The newly discovered and extensively exploited phrase is laying the burden of responsibility for the disastrous outcome of the war on the Iraqis instead of at the feet of those who started the war, mainly the criminal Neo-Conservatives and their military-corporate-government complexes, the spineless Democrats, the mainstream media, the religious establishment, and all the enlightened citizens of the strongest and supposedly wealthiest democracy in the world who supported and continue to support this genocide.

In the midst of the obscenity that continues to be the occupation of Iraq, Military Channel, and other reality style entertainment, we have become accustomed to actual violence. We are desensitized to the humiliation that is inflicted on the Iraqi people on a daily basis.

The people of Iraq are struggling on more the one level. The refugee problem of 4 million Iraqis has reached crisis proportions and those fleeing the economic, physical, and psychological effects of this war are trapped with little help in the present and no hope for the future.

Now, a new "Wall of Segregation" is being built to protect a Sunni sector of Baghdad. What may be forgotten here is: that which prevents you from going in also prevents you from coming out. The unfolding Orwellian surrealism of the situation in Palestine and, now, Iraq, reminds me of a movie I saw a few months ago, CHILDREN OF MEN.

Riverbend is an Iraqi blogger who has been on the blogsphere since the beginning of the war. She has articulated what many Iraqis have felt for years and, in this piece, she shares what many who are caught in prolonged war go through and the dilemmas they face.

Maybe, one day, we can all meet that courageous girl around the bend where "hearts can heal and souls can mend."

Mercenaries for Hire: An Old Strategy in a New World

According to a United Nations report published recently, the number of mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan has been increasing steadily and now comprises the second largest military force in the region. One third of the “Coalition of the Willing” are mercenaries.

This is an old world practice that is quickly proliferating in an age that is marked by an indefinite “War on Terror.” The United States government, in the absence of a draft during a long and drawn out war, is resorting to private “contracting” firms for help.

American, British, and other security companies are supplying the private armies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe. The Center for Public Integrity publishes a list of all the firms that are currently operating in the Middle East. Mercenaries come from different backgrounds: ex Special Forces and other military from places like the United States, Britain, Jordan, the Philippines, and even from within Iraq, or world citizens who are looking for a quick way to get rich and see some action. All have one thing in common: their role is not well-defined and, although technically they fall under the jurisdiction of the occupying armies, they have engaged in questionable and criminal behavior without proper oversight. At the same time, they also have been subject to extremely dangerous and unpredictable events. In fact, the time is coming when such mercenaries will be entitled to "labor rights" like any immigrant laborer holding a work visa. Apparently, Filipino recruits, like many of their counterparts in other areas of the world, are being rushed through their training and lack the necessary skills for the military jobs they are expected to do.

According to Al-Akhbar, a Lebanese newspaper, many of these mercenaries have no clear mission and lack an understanding of their exact role in the war zone. Their only direct order is to shoot at anyone who "appears" hostile towards the Occupation Forces.

It is worth noting that mercenary activity is prohibited by the Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights.

Article 2 of the United Nations International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries (ratified in 1989 and went into effect in 2001) states "Any person who recruits, uses, finances or trains mercenaries, as defined in article 1 of the present Convention, commits an offence for the purposes of the Convention."

However, many of those recruits are in legal limbo because they do not fall under the technical definition of "mercenary" (see Article 1 of the above Convention). They are hired as "security" personnel to protect officials and the offices of international organizations.

Many mercenaries have been engaged in acts of torture, murder, theft and destruction of property. The pay for such lawless activity?

Mercenaries from poorer countries, $4,000 a month.

U.S. and other posh ex Special Forces: up to $1,500 a day.

Where else can tough guys relive their old and gone days of glory while fattening their bank accounts and posing for their trophy pictures to brag about back home?

ISN'T WAR GREAT!

A Peculiar Outrage

The treatment of Faye Turney is wrong - but not in the same league as British and US abuses

Ronan Bennett
Friday March 30, 2007

It's right that the government and media should be concerned about the treatment the 15 captured marines and sailors are receiving in Iran. Faye Turney's letters bear the marks of coercion, while parading the prisoners in front of TV cameras was demeaning. But the outrage expressed by ministers and leader writers is curious given the recent record of the "coalition of the willing" on the way it deals with prisoners.

Turney may have been "forced to wear the hijab", as the Daily Mail noted with fury, but so far as we know she has not been forced into an orange jumpsuit. Her comrades have not been shackled, blindfolded, forced into excruciating physical contortions for long periods, or denied liquids and food. As far as we know they have not had the Bible spat on, torn up or urinated on in front of their faces. They have not had electrodes attached to their genitals or been set on by attack dogs.......Continued from "The Guardian."

Iran Attack: Will We or Won't We?

With talk of an imminent attack on Iran and its enrichment sites (April 6th as some are suggesting), U.S. allies in the Gulf region are announcing that they will not allow the launching of strikes from their territories (really?). At the same time, the projected strike has briefly spiked the price of oil by $5.00 a barrel. But what is the likelihood of an attack and what will the actual consequences be, especially if "tactical" nukes are used?

Fomenting Civil War in Lebanon

The War on Lebanon: Israeli military casualties inside Lebanon, 2006

How the United States and Israel are stirring sectarian tensions.

The Israeli defeat in its last war against Hezbollah and the civilians of Lebanon has put a dent in their public image and has caused indignation on the part of many inside the Zionist state and their supporters in the United States. Israel’s defeat is never acceptable to the biblical war mongers of Zion. Another assault on Lebanon, in one form or another, is in the works, according to many experts and civilians who are sharing their pessimism on the blogsphere.

The recent flurry of activity and the sectarian violence in Lebanon have laid a blanket of pessimism over the population. War criminals along the lines of Ja’ja’ (one of the leaders of the Sabra and Chatila massacres) are the darlings of Washington and Tel Aviv. There is evidence of smuggling of crates of unknown contents (AKA weapons) into the headquarters and homes of government supporters, courtesy of the U.S. government. Those crates were supposedly allotted to the Lebanese Army.

The hope in Tel Aviv and Washington is to provoke a confrontation between Hezbollah, their supporters in the Opposition and a few in the Christian and Sunni militias who support the current government (which is seen by most Lebanese as the facilitator of colonial U.S. and Israeli policies in the Middle East). Hezbollah has never, in its history of resistance, engaged in an act of confrontation with other Lebanese groups. It has tried and continues to try to avoid such confrontation.

Israel failed to militarily crush the Lebanese Resistance during its last brutal war on the people of Lebanon. Their aim now is to create Iraq-like civil war conditions to maintain control over yet another area in the region (another U.S. and Israel-friendly regime).

Not much talk is coming out of Washington about democracy in Lebanon any more. The American experiment in Lebanon has failed, the same way it has failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and all over the world since the end of WWII (with its support of tyrannical regimes).

The people of Lebanon are pessimistic because maybe they know that they are caught in the middle of the powers of the feudal and racist system that makes up the remnants of the old colonially produced Lebanon and the barbaric and vicious intent of the U.S. and Israel to destroy the opposition at any cost.

Meanwhile, despite talk of pull-back from Iraq inside the American political system, the different wars will continue for at least one decade in the form of black ops, outright war, or internal civil strife and assassinations.

Some are asking: if there is another war in Lebanon, will Hezbollah hand Israel its 6th defeat?

Crouching Tiger, Tumbling US Economy

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized"
Sun Tzu, Chinese author and military strategist, c. 544-496 BC

The Iraqi cabinet has just approved a draft of an oil law granting foreign companies unprecedented access to the country's oil fields. Meanwhile, Chinese oil company officials arrived in Baghdad to revive Hussein-era contracts for developing Iraq's oil, specifically, the Ahdab oil field in south-central Iraq. Hundreds of millions of dollars and a reduction in Iraq's Chinese debt are already on the table.

China also recently announced plans to strategically refocus its one trillion dollar foreign-currency war chest. Rather than continuing to rely on US Treasury bonds, which yield relatively small returns and risk dollar depreciation, Beijing is expected to increasingly snap up natural resources and energy assets across the world. As the U.S. economy sinks, China and India, the two countries with the largest populations, are expected to fill what traditionally has been the role of the United States in the global market. As they lay claim to natural resources across the globe, they are distancing themselves from the U.S. economy. The never-ending war on terror can only have one consequence.

As the famed military strategist Sun Tzu once noted, "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare." Instead, he advised waiting quietly as an enemy self-destructs, then sweeping in to reap the profits, an effective plan for Beijing during the Bush years.

Israel's Last Chance

The violent and confrontational approach of the Israeli state, the increasing internal corruption, economic and political challenges, as well as the nature of the population within the Zionist state have highlighted the festering wounds of an ailing nation. Presidential sex scandals, bribery charges against the Prime Minister, and organized crime are but a glimpse of what is ailing the small country. The July 2006 war on the people of Lebanon has highlighted the weakening of the political and moral nature of Israel.

The character of the Zionist state is eroding and, if it is to survive as a political entity, more conciliatory approaches towards Arab neighbors and foes will become prudent. Israel can inflict mass destruction on the people of the Middle East. What it cannot do is implement planned political change in the region. Israel's last chance as a viable nation in the region hinges upon its ability to reach out with diplomacy as opposed to subterfuge and war.

Fueling the Fires of Sectarian Conflict: Divide and Conquer

Don't you love Sy Hersh? I do. This man can take on the brainless yet ruthless U.S. administration, the ambitious, nutty Olmert, and Bandar Bush and his clan of "Defenders of the Faith" (the oil faith that is) and still crack a smile every now and then.

Then there are the newly emergent phrases such as “Sunnis against Shi’as” and “The tide of Shi’ism in the Middle East," phrases repeated by people who know nothing about either.

The Neo-Conservative ruling cabal has a knack for logic too: "you're either with us, or you are Muslim." According to the Neo-Cons, all Muslims are the enemy and the only good Muslim is a Muslim engaged in permanent conflict with another Muslim. And then it gets more twisted.

We have supported Sunnis to fight the Soviets and Iran. After the Iraq invasion of 2003, we installed a Shi’ite government in Baghdad to rid the country of the Ba’th regime and to minimize Al-Qa’ida’s influence. Now we are illegally arming Sunni extremists (Salafis) in Lebanon in the hope that they would engage in a war of attrition with Hizbollah. The constant shifting of alliances to correct errors and unplanned consequences of shallow and racist policies are compromising all the nations in the Middle East and, ultimately, the world.

Who in reality is creating the sectarian tensions in the Middle East? It seems that the “Divide and Conquer” rule still holds as true as ever. But those who do not learn from history will repeat it. I wonder which group will emerge in the future to fight off another imperial invasion of its country. The lessons of the Taliban, Hizbollah, Al-Qa’ida, Al-Mujahideen, and Khomeini, have been lost on this Zionist and bankrupt administration, which has initiated a fragmentation in the Middle East whose dire global repercussions are yet to be measured. But Sy Hersh may have a glimpse into it.

Kiss Israel's Ass! Or AIPAC Says You Support Genocide

As the American public becomes weary with the stunts of the Zionist lobby and this Neo-Con administration, Israeli apologists are going full steam in insisting that the existence of Israel hinges on a deadly strike against Iran. With the emerging public awareness regarding the deceit that went into the Iraq war, the Zionists and their bullies in Washington are desperate; nothing is too obscene for them in this push for a war on another country that, one more time (here we go again) has done us no harm and has no intention to do so in the foreseeable future (that can change if we decide to attack with a possibility of using nuclear weapons as some are anticipating).

There are efforts to counteract this vengeful and malicious hatred of a country and its citizens as Gary Leupp exposes the shenanigans of the Zionist lobby and their sense of entitlement. It is all about them and to hell with the rest of the world.

Land Theft Continues

Can we really call this a "separation fence?"


Settler theft of Palestinian land continues with the support of the Supreme Planning Council in Israel despite the efforts of the local people and the Israeli peace and human rights groups. The village of Bil‘in in the West Bank is the site of such theft currently. The Apartheid Wall (AKA "separation barrier" in more politically correct circles), is used as a security pretext to annex more Palestinian land to Israeli settlements. That is one way of legitimizing land theft for colonial purposes.

The Burdens of Empire: The Indefinite Global War

The onward march to war across the Middle East continues to find momentum in the bipartisan mockery of a U.S. government and in the biblically archaic Israeli Knesset. The American and Israeli public have been "dumbed down." The seduction of war has taken a hold through the glorified excursions of U.S. soldiers in their daily and nightly "missions" into the sanctity of people's homes in Iraq and Afghanistan courtesy of Hollywood and the "Military Channel." We have been desensitized to the unknown and grotesquely large numbers of civilian casualties. We are in the process of getting desensitized to the numbers of U.S. casualties too. Why feel left out? After all, we have become accustomed to the daily killing of Palestinian children in their own homes and territory by the "most moral army in the world." They probably deserved it anyway because they live in the same neighborhoods as the "terrorists."

All eyes are on Iran now. Will Iran be the next excursion in the Israeli/Neo Con game of perpetual war? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, the drums of war are beating in Washington, His Mighty Highness, our Commander in Chief is singling Iran out in his State of the Union addresses, Iranian diplomats are being kidnapped, and every ill that has befallen the Middle East from Pakistan to Lebanon is the fault of Iran. So, what awaits the world beyond a possible war on Iran?

And another civilization may bite the dust and send humanity one step closer into another dark age. But that is part of the perpetual war scheme; the continuous threat provides for a permanent "state of war."


Marilyn