‘Time to take a stance’ – University of Pretoria pressed to back boycott of Israeli academic institutions

Palestinians flee from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip after a new evacuation order was issued by the Israel Defense Forces on 27 July 2024. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Haitham Imad)

By Lerato Mutsila

29 Jul 2024

Students and staff at the University of Pretoria are calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions as the continued bombardment of Gaza is effectively wiping out Palestinian education systems.

Pressure is mounting for the University of Pretoria’s (UP) Senate to take a firm stance on Israel’s war in Gaza after staff and student solidarity groups submitted a draft resolution calling for the university to boycott Israeli academic institutions and support Palestinian educational institutions and academics under fire in Gaza.

The UP Senate will meet on Tuesday, 30 July to vote on whether to adopt the draft resolution.

Speaking on behalf of UPStaff4Palestine, a group that stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people, UP senior lecturer Dr Marc Wegerif told Daily Maverick it was essential that institutions like the University of Pretoria took a stand on the human rights violations taking place in Palestine.

“What a lot of people hear when we talk about taking a stance in this conflict is that we support Hamas. That is not true. We do not support Hamas. We do not support Israel. But we do stand with the people of Palestine, and the university should, too,” Wegerif said.

university of pretoria israel academic boycott Palestinians leave Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip after a new evacuation order was issued by the Israel Defense Forces on 27 July 2024. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Haitham Imad)

Among key concerns, the draft resolution seeks to address how the continued war in Gaza is wiping out education and knowledge systems in Palestine.

Since Israel’s bombardment of the strip began, at least 60% of the educational facilities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, leaving about 625,000 students with no access to education.

In April, the United Nations released a statement revealing that more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors had been killed in Gaza. More than 7,819 students and 756 teachers had been injured.

Read more: Middle East crisis news hub

“The education structures across Gaza have been completely destroyed. They have been deliberately targeted and destroyed by Israeli forces. This is what we talk about when we say ‘scholasticide’. This is part of the genocide that is not only wiping out people, but wiping out education and wiping out the skills base of the Palestinian people,” Wegerif said.

Scholasticide is a term coined by Oxford professor Karma Nabulsi, which describes the systemic destruction of Palestinian education within the context of Israel’s decades-long settler colonisation and occupation of Palestine.

Zeenat Patel, chairperson of the student organisation Palestine Solidarity Campaign UP, told Daily Maverick that universities and academic institutions were important in ensuring that future generations were well-informed, training students in various important professions and conducting research for ultimate societal benefit and gain.

“When you have a destruction of those institutions, it signals a collapse because you are going to have a breakdown in a society that cannot meet their own needs and meet the needs of their people, and that is ultimately what we are seeing in Palestine – it will only become worse going forward. This is why this issue is of particular concern to us as students who relate to the plight of the Palestinians,” Patel said.

Disclose, boycott, disinvest

The comprehensive draft resolution calls for the university to take several actions regarding Israel’s war in Gaza, including boycotting all Israeli academic institutions. This would entail refraining from engaging in academic and cultural collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions, desisting from publishing in or reviewing articles from Israeli-linked academic journals, or publishing in collaboration with Israeli institutions.

The resolution also calls for UP to audit and disclose its investments to ensure there are no links to Israeli firms actively involved in supporting the war in Palestine. In cases where links are found, the resolution calls for the university to disinvest.

Aside from calling for disinvestment and boycotts, Wegerif added that the university could also use its resources to support students who cannot complete their studies because their institutions have been destroyed, and also lend a helping hand to Israeli and Palestinian academics.

“There are dissenting voices among Israeli academics that have spoken out against what is happening in Gaza, to great personal loss. We know that they are being harassed in their institutions in Israel for speaking out. So we are asking the university to reach out and support those academics,” Wegerif said.

‘Moral obligation’

Speaking of the institution’s moral obligations, Wegerif said that adopting the resolution offered the university an opportunity not only to live up to its values but also to prove that it could stand with the oppressed and stand against the apartheid that Israel had foisted on Palestine.

“The University of Pretoria was set up by a settler colonial project. It was very much a part of that regime and an important supporter of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Over the last 30 years or so, there have been some changes and there has been some transformation at the university, and that can be reflected in our values, which say we should stand for humanity.

“This is an important moment for the University of Pretoria. It was on the wrong side of history during apartheid in South Africa. UP now needs to show that it has changed. It needs to show that it can stand clearly against apartheid… that it can stand against settler colonialism,” Wegerif said.

The University of Pretoria is not the only academic institution in this position. Earlier this year, the University of Cape Town’s Senate adopted two resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The University of the Western Cape, Nelson Mandela University, Wits University, the University of Venda and the University of Limpopo have also adopted similar resolutions.

Stellenbosch University’s Senate rejected a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. DM

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Disclose, boycott, disinvest

‘Moral obligation’