362 NALSAR Students Ask University to Cut Ties With Israeli Varsities Over Gaza Genocide

New Delhi: A group of 362 students, 70 alumni and 21 faculty members from the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad have written to the university administration asking it to cut existing ties with two Israeli universities – Tel Aviv University and the Radzyner School of Law – as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

“As of today, there is not one University left standing in Gaza. All universities in Gaza are now dust and debris. The resounding silence of Israeli universities in defending Palestine people’s basic right to education, let alone ‘academic freedom’, and failure to strike a strong note against the Israeli government’s onslaught on Palestine’s universities is very telling of the legitimacy of their claim to ‘academic freedom’,” the letter states.

“Apart from the apparent complicity that these institutions have time and again demonstrated, it is shameful that as a University which boasts of a lively dissent culture, we play no part in posing a resistant front to the Israeli actions today. It would not be amiss to state that the destruction of human life, ripping bare of its dignity and the consequent mayhem in Palestine appeals to our faculties and responsibilities as a fellow human and humanitarian to play our small role in this movement. It is for the sake of the innumerable victims, dead children and women, shattered bodies and stray limbs that bear witness to the hell on earth that we owe our commitment towards a boycott of any association with Israeli Universities and Institutions,” it continues.

Read the full letter below.

Dear All,

Nearly a week ago, the world woke up to horrific audio-visuals from a barbaric missile attack by Israel on a Palestinian Refugee Safe Camp in Rafah that claimed over 45 lives with some yet to be identified from their charred remains. It woke up to a mother holding the heap of her three burnt children in her palms, a father with a beheaded child, and shattered limbs and bodies. The world woke up, yet again, to fire raging in the darkness and people screaming in panic. The massacre, a “tragic mistake”, as termed by Benjamin Netanyahu, is an explicit violation of any and all humanitarian obligations, peace treaties, principles of proportionality, diktats by the ICJ order, and any existing piece of international law under the sun, but more than anything, it remains a violation of unprecedented accords of a people’s identity, human worth, and dignity.

Israel’s offensive, purportedly against the October 7 attacks by Hamas, has gone large and beyond acceptable standards of self-defense and nears, if not already qualifies, the thresholds of a genocidal decimation. Human rights organizations including Lowenstein Human Rights Project, Yale Law School, UN experts, and the International Court of Justice, Hague have in no uncertain terms held the disproportionality of the offensive and a likely ‘genocidal’ character to the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Between October 7, 2023, and May 30, 2024, Israel has killed at least 36,743 Palestinians and injured at least 86,727 people. These figures in total comprise more than 5 percent of Gaza’s population. More than 14,500 of the Palestinians killed have been children. A staggering 1.7 million civilians—over 75  percent of Gaza’s population—have been forcibly displaced as a result of Israel’s military offensive.

Time and again, Israel brought hospitals, universities, aid-shelters, schools, colleges, offices, residential complexes, roads, parks, public places, to dust, in their quest to ‘hunt down Hamas’. Human Rights Watch documented a strike by Israeli forces on the Al-Shifa Hospital on November 3, 2023 reportedly killing 15 people and injuring 60, with no evidence for the hospital complex being used for military purposes. Several air-strikes were carried out on numerous hospitals, including the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital and the Eye Care Centre between October 7 and November 7, despite its repercussions on patients and civilian casualties. The Israeli forces used White Phosphorus explosions in their military operations in Lebanon and Gaza on October 10 and 11, 2023 respectively targeting civilians, qualifying as a potential war crime. It has also engaged in dehumanizing and intentional deprivation of services critical for the survival of the Palestinian population, as Yaov Gallant, Israel’s Minister of Defence declared on October 9, 2023 that, “We are declaring a full seizure of Gaza. No Electricity, No Food, No Water, No fuel- everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”

With already depleted fuel reserves, a sharp decline in potable water production after the hostilities, destroyed crops and food produce, and Israel obstructing essential aid into Palestine, it is now impossible for most Palestinians in the strip and elsewhere to live even if they survive a military offensive. Now, Israel is guilty of Palestinian deaths by hunger and malnutrition. Israel has not only repeatedly deployed weapons of wide-scale impact, utterly lacking any precision and hinting at intentional attacks directed at civilians, but also continuously violated its international obligations to not cause harm to the humanitarian needs of the occupied population.

We have our eyes on Rafah, we have our eyes on Gaza, we have our eyes on the West Bank. Must we destine our eyes, awareness, and consciousness to pity or transform it to solidarity with our action? It is in this backdrop that we feel compelled to assess the role of academic institutions and call for a complete dissociation with all Israeli institutions involved, directly or indirectly, by action or omission, with the ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

Education, the process and institutions that impart it, the minds it makes and shapes, and the values and ideas it breathes and spreads serve not just the purpose of producing employees or professionals, but also determine national consciousness, conceptions of (in)justice, and struggles for emancipation. As students receiving legal education beyond mere provisions in the statute book, and receiving that from an institution like NALSAR— known for its academic freedom, progressiveness, and critical thinking— we cannot, even if we force ourselves to, sever the relationship between education, violence, oppression, injustices, and the ideas that sustain them.

NALSAR continues to have International Academic Exchange Programme MoUs with two Israeli Universities: (a) The Radzyner School of Law, Reichman University, Israel and (b) The Buchmann School of Law, Tel Aviv University, Israel. Arguments pertaining to the negligible consequence of severing ties with these universities on their academic prospects are myopic to the extent that they ignore the role academic boycott plays not just in increasing international pressure in global academia but also the commitment to ‘Academic Freedom,’ a freedom that entails freedom for all people.

As of today, there is not one University left standing in Gaza. All universities in Gaza are now dust and debris. The resounding silence of Israeli universities in defending Palestine people’s basic right to education, let alone ‘academic freedom’, and failure to strike a strong note against the Israeli government’s onslaught on Palestine’s universities is very telling of the legitimacy of their claim to ‘academic freedom’.

Over and beyond their silences, the Tel Aviv University has both directly and indirectly either contributed to the current onslaught in Gaza or defended its legitimacy in academic literature. It has played a crucial role in collaborating with defense-tech companies such as RAFAEL, Bet Shemesh Engines, IAI and Elbit Systems, whose products today are actively deployed by the IDF against Palestinians. The Radzyner School of Law houses international scholar Prof. Aharon Barak, who has actively and publicly endorsed the actions of the Israeli Government, with multiple publications in defense of the Israeli State’s actions in Gaza. Both these universities have actively stayed aloof from lending any support, both academic and material, towards the cessation of hostilities against the Palestinian people. They continue to be a part of Israeli Militarism and contribute to the infrastructure of oppression and open support for Israel’s crimes. In fact, a study published by a joint Israeli-Palestinian NGO, the Alternative Information Center states that Israeli academic institutions have not opted to take a neutral, apolitical position toward the Israeli occupation but to fully support the Israeli occupation forces and policies toward the Palestinians.

The boycott movement, called for initially by the Palestinian BDS National Committee and also endorsed by leading academicians in India, including Prof. Upendra Baxi who NALSAR holds dear and in high esteem, in 2010, provides an empowering, non-violent and principled means for civil society to actively hold Israeli institutions, be they economic, cultural or academic, accountable for their complicity in Israel’s egregious policies and actions. A failure to act would continue to allow for the perpetuation of Israel’s extensive violations of Palestinian academic rights and other human rights, while also providing continued impunity that will embolden Israel to carry out graver violations than those we have witnessed thus far.

Apart from the apparent complicity that these institutions have time and again demonstrated, it is shameful that as a University which boasts of a lively dissent culture, we play no part in posing a resistant front to the Israeli actions today. It would not be amiss to state that the destruction of human life, ripping bare of its dignity and the consequent mayhem in Palestine appeals to our faculties and responsibilities as a fellow human and humanitarian to play our small role in this movement. It is for the sake of the innumerable victims, dead children and women, shattered bodies and stray limbs that bear witness to the hell on earth that we owe our commitment towards a boycott of any association with Israeli Universities and Institutions.

Therefore, the undersigned unequivocally condemn the past and ongoing actions of the Israeli state in Palestine, nearing genocidal undertakings, and Israel’s violation of international human rights obligations along with a binding operative ICJ order. In this breath, we call upon the NALSAR Administration to cut all ties pertaining to International Exchange Programmes with Israeli Institutes: Tel Aviv University and The Radzyner School of Law as a part of complete academic and economic disassociation with the Israeli State and academia that continues to remain not just a mute spectator but an active complicit in the ongoing crisis. It is now time to give life to our own claim that we are an institution that believes in and strives for the realization of human rights and freedoms, peace, and well-being of all humanity. Else, we submit ourselves to listen to the claim that NALSAR is a respectable and progressive institution ringing incredibly hollow.

-The Wire