600 academics urge Irish universities to cut ties with Israel

No less than 600 Irish academics, horrified by the scale of the disaster in the Gaza Strip and the massacre which has been bloodying it for almost a month, killing more than 10,000 Palestinian civilians and atomizing international humanitarian law with a barbarity rarely seen achieved, urge action.

All signatories to the letter written by Academics for Palestine, they urge universities in Ireland to immediately sever all ties with the Israeli apartheid state and its institutions, protesting against “ the extreme scale and severity of Israel’s retaliation against the Gaza Strip, which exceeded all previous levels of violence in Israel’s protracted and brutal occupation of Palestine “.

Being indignant at a “ a campaign of ethnic cleansing and its genocidal violence » which takes place in full view of everyone, these 600 Irish teachers, researchers and other doctoral students demand that the “ academic ties established with Israel and institutional partnerships established with its universities be immediately suspended until the occupation of Palestinian territory ends, the rights of Palestinians to equality and self-determination are recognized and the right return of Palestinian refugees is facilitated. »

Their missive reports a heavy, macabre toll that should shock everyone’s conscience: more than 3,700 childrens, innocence personified, were cruelly murdered by Israeli bombs, a number exceeding the annual number of children killed in the rest of the world’s armed conflicts combined “.

And to continue, by depicting a “ inhumane situation beyond words » : “ Many Palestinians are dying from lack of fuel, water, electricity and medical supplies due to the deliberate blockade. Gaza hospitals are barely able to function – no electricity for ventilators, using vinegar as an antiseptic, performing surgeries without anesthesia – and continue to be hit by Israeli airstrikes “.

“ Prominent Jewish and Israeli scholars specializing in Holocaust and genocide studies have called it a “textbook case of genocide. Bosnian genocide experts have also stated that “ what is happening in Gaza is a genocide “, they highlight, before emphasizing with terror that the “ atrocities committed in Gaza now add to 75 years of frenzied colonization of Palestinian lands by Israel “.