Pandor urges intensified South African university activism against Israel

Former Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils. (Photo: Dirco)

By Peter Fabricius

8 May 2024

South Africa’s institutions of higher learning had a special responsibility to show solidarity with Palestine because of SA’s history, the Dirco minister said.

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Naledi Pandor has called for greater university and student activism and boycotts against Israel for what she called its “scholasticide” in Gaza — “the systemic obliteration of education”.

She was delivering the second annual Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Lecture at the University of Johannesburg on Wednesday. Abu Akleh was an Al Jazeera journalist who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers while reporting in the West Bank two years ago. Most Palestinians and their supporters believe it was an assassination, though Israel says it was an accident.

Naledi Pandor addresses the second annual Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Lecture at the University of Johannesburg on Wednesday. (Photo: Dirco)

“If Shireen were alive today, she would have been in the trenches in Gaza, reporting day and night on the atrocities taking place in the hopes that the world would take notice and show their solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Pandor said.

The theme of her lecture was “The Responsibility of the Academy in a Time of Genocide”, and Pandor said the UN Human Rights Office had on 18 April raised serious alarm about the systematic destruction of the Palestinian education system.

“The report states that ‘with more than 80% of schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed, it may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as ‘scholasticide’ — the systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention or killing of teachers, students and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure’.”

Pandor said after six months of Israel’s military assault, more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors had been killed in Gaza, and more than 7,819 students and 756 teachers had been injured.

“At least 60% of educational facilities, including 13 public libraries, have been damaged or destroyed and at least 625,000 primary and secondary school students and over 100,000 college and university students in Gaza have no access to education.

“The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has damaged or destroyed nine out of every 10 schools… Between October 2023 and January this year, the IDF bombed all the universities in Gaza,” Pandor said.

“Consequently, Gaza’s treasured intellectual landmarks, including the Islamic University of Gaza, the North Gaza and Tubas branches of Al-Quds Open University, and Palestine Technical University have all been destroyed.

“Another 195 heritage sites, 227 mosques and three churches have also been damaged or destroyed, including the Central Archives of Gaza, containing 150 years of history. Israa University, the last remaining university in Gaza was demolished by the Israeli military on January 17th this year.”

A clear message

Pandor said, “The international academic community should have sent a clear message that those who target schools and universities in other states will be held responsible. And that accountability for these violations will include an end to collaboration, an end to donations, an end to financial support.

“My expectation is after our talk you will become activists,” she added. “As educators, advocates, activists, civil society and state structures, we should all play a role in the global struggle in search of truth and justice.

“It is our collective responsibility to raise our voices in solidarity with the people of Palestine who are fighting for their survival in the midst of the genocidal campaign being waged against them.”

Pandor said South Africa’s institutions of higher learning had a special responsibility to show solidarity with Palestine because of this country’s history.

She noted that in November last year, more than 1,000 individuals connected to higher education in South Africa had signed an open letter of solidarity with Palestine and had called on Universities South Africa and the Academy of Science of South Africa to do the same.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of the Western Cape had made official statements calling for a ceasefire and immediate humanitarian aid to Gaza.

“The UCT Senate has resolved that no UCT academic should collaborate with any academic on any research project if they are identified with the Israel Defense Forces.

“The majority in the Senate voted in favour of supporting Palestinian academics and the right to have debates on Zionism without being accused of anti-Semitism. Stellenbosch University Senate members have called for an end to the brutal and barbaric destruction of Gaza saying that, ‘no crimes can justify genocidal actions in retaliation’.

“Unfortunately the Senate did not pass a resolution on the Israel-Palestine crisis on the ‘Genocide and Destruction of Scholarship and Education in Gaza’, as it was not agreed to by the majority of Senate members.”

Pandor applauded Fort Hare for taking one of the strongest stands, including a commitment not to pursue any institutional links with Israeli institutions complicit in “supporting settler colonial oppression and apartheid and in grave violations of human rights, including developing weaponry, military doctrines and legal justification for the indiscriminate mass targeting of Palestinians”.

Pandor said Fort Hare needed to be joined by other more powerful SA universities in taking such a strong stand.

Greater activism

“We are also buoyed by the growing mobilisation on college campuses across the world in support of the just cause for freedom and justice of the people of Palestine.”

She noted that New York’s Columbia University had been the locus of these protests and had also been the first US university to divest from apartheid South Africa.

“We hope that this unprecedented activism by students in the US will also spur greater activism among student movements here in South Africa, and spur more vocal support from our university administrators, some of whom have remained silent,” Pandor said.

Former Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils at the second annual Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Lecture at the University of Johannesburg on Wednesday. (Photo: Dirco)

Former Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils praised the University of Johannesburg for what it was doing for Palestine.

Palestinian-Canadian lawyer, activist and former peace negotiator Diana Buttu, participating in the event by video, praised the SA government for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on genocide charges earlier this year.

She said Shireen Abu Akleh had been an “excellent reporter” and a “beloved friend to me and hundreds of others”.

“Shireen’s assassination was not done in a vacuum. It was the result of years of Israel targeting journalists, and in particular, targeting Al Jazeera journalists.” She said Israel had bombed the offices of the AP news agency and Al Jazeera in the Gaza Strip.

Since the current conflict began on 7 October 2023 following a Hamas attack on Israel that left about 1200 people dead, “Israel has killed over 140 Palestinian journalists. “So they’ve done this for a deliberate reason, which is that Israel wants to make sure that you don’t see what’s happening, because I firmly believe that once you see, you cannot unsee.”

If Abu Akleh were alive she would have exposed many stories about the war which the Western media had got wrong, in part because “they have been complicit in this genocide”. DM

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A clear message

Greater activism