76 universities in Spain cut ties with complicit Israeli universities

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) welcomes this groundbreaking decision the Conference of University Rectors in Spain (CRUE) on “Suspend cooperation agreements with Israeli universities and research centers who have not expressed a firm commitment to peace and compliance with international humanitarian law.”

No Israeli university meets these conditions, as many scholars, including Israeli anthropologist Maya Wind, have meticulously documented in her recently published book, Towers of Ivory and Steel. The decision of CRUE, which includes the leaders of 50 public and 26 private universities in Spain demonstrates a commitment to international law and academic freedom.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has defied the International Court of Justice’s interim measures to end all acts of genocide and the UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. The UN Human Rights Council and dozens of UN human rights experts have called for targeted sanctions against Israel. including scientific and technological cooperation.

As Israel escalates its plan to use “extreme violence” against 1.4 million displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the besieged Gaza Strip, this stance by university leaders in Spain to end complicity in Israel’s crimes is an important measure that all international universities should follow.

Haidar Eid, genocide survivor and associate professor of postcolonial literature at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, commented:

The decision of the Conference of University Rectors in Spain to terminate relations with Israeli universities is a historic, concrete step to hold Israel and its complicit academic institutions accountable for the genocide against us Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel killed some of my students and colleagues and destroyed my university, just as it destroyed every university in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli universities openly brag about providing material support to the current genocide and the decades-old system of apartheid. The decision of the universities in Spain and the student uprisings that led to this decision give us hope that justice can and will prevail.

Israeli universities have a long and well-documented history of actively supporting Israel’s regime of military occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid. In recent months, they have also supported Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza with words and deeds, including by providing “a variety of logistical equipment to several military units.”

In what U.N. special rapporteur Balakrishnan Rajagopal has called “killing of learning” or scholasticicide, Israel has destroyed or damaged every university in Gaza, including by planting explosives on empty campuses to level them, and after some had been occupied and used as military bases and detention centers. Hundreds of Palestinian schools, most of which were run by UNRWA, were also bombed.

15 major Palestinian universities have called on international scholars and academic institutions to isolate Israeli universities because “they were essential to the regime of colonial oppression and settler apartheid and engaged in serious human rights violations, including the development of weapons, military doctrines and legal justifications.” “the indiscriminate, mass attacks on Palestinians.”

CRUE’s decision comes as student camps spread across Spanish university campuses and reflects the voices of students around the world who support the Palestinian call to end institutional ties with complicit companies and Israeli universities. Also the Council of the University of Barcelona Voted this week to terminate all relations with Israeli academic institutions and companies involved in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

PACBI calls on all international universities to repeat these significant steps by Spanish university leaders and to end relationships with companies and Israeli universities that are complicit in the Israeli genocide and the underlying decades-old settler-colonial apartheid regime.