We, scholars and academic workers in the Nordic countries, write this in response to the open letter from Birzeit University in Palestine, addressed to international academic institutions, dated October 15th.
We stand in solidarity with the union of professors and employees at the Birzeit University who call us to fulfill our academic duty to seek truth, maintain critical distance from state-sponsored propaganda, and hold the perpetrators of genocide and those complicit with them accountable. With this declaration, we are joining academics worldwide to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
We cannot stay silent while watching the Israeli state killing thousands of civilian Palestinians in front of our eyes.
We deeply mourn all Palestinian and Israeli civilians who have been killed since October 7th, and are horrified by the recent weeks’ violent escalations that have had devastating consequences for so many civilians’ lives. In accordance with UN Secretary-General, we recognize this violence as rooted in the Israeli state’s continuous expansion of the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Throughout 75 years, Israel’s acts of settler-colonial violence, categorized by the UN as war crimes, are well documented, as is its imposed system of apartheid (see also here) on Palestinian people, greatly violating the Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law. We are now witnessing how these violations are escalating into what is being alarmed by the UN as an emergent genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza. Meanwhile, the occupied West Bank experiences intensified violence, raids by the Israeli military forces, and attacks by settlers. We further recognize that Israel's ongoing illegal occupation and crimes against humanity have been nurtured through support from Western international communities, leaders, institutions, and financial actors; currently we see Western powers blocking attempts for a ceasefire.
We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people to call for an end to the genocide and occupation.
We cannot allow Israel to continue the current war on Gaza, and we cannot allow a return to the status quo. Status quo for the Palestinian people means living under Israel’s apartheid system and the 16-year siege in Gaza with a land-, air- and sea blockade; Israeli military and settlers' continuous killing of civilian Palestinians across Occupied Palestine, counting more than 6000 lives taken and 150.000 injured between 2008 and October 7th 2023 alone; The continued illegal appropriation of Palestinian land through settlements, amounting to more than 100.000 hectares since 1967; and continued destruction of Palestinian water structures, olive trees, villages, and other vital parts of Palestinians’ life.
We urge our governments and the international community to call for an immediate ceasefire and free passage of emergency aid to Gaza, to recognize Palestine as a sovereign nation state, support the decolonization of Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, and put an end to Israel's state apartheid.
As academics and researchers, we are aware of the power of knowledge to enact as well as assuage violence. We believe it is our responsibility to cultivate historically and scientifically accurate knowledge that is in service of a more just world, and to harness our resources and platforms to act and speak out against the brutalities of imperialism, colonialism, and genocide. We understand Palestinian liberation as inherent to a broader project of ending oppression and colonial violence in all contexts. From our position in the Nordics, this also means reckoning with enduring colonial legacies such as in relation to Sápmi and Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland). These struggles are not separate but interwoven.
As researchers, we call on Nordic universities and all other academic institutions to:
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Call for an immediate ceasefire. This is to allow for dignified burials for the deceased and to prevent disease outbreaks. This further includes:
- The urgent restoration of water, food, fuel, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid
- Immediate protection of medical facilities and reversal of the illegal and inhumane evacuation orders for hospitals.
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The facilitation of safe passage for casualties and critically-ill individuals in need of medical treatment
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Engage in a boycott of all collaborations with Israeli academic institutions until Israel ends their war on Gaza and puts an end to their occupation and apartheid rule of Palestine. Israeli academic institutions are well known to engage in the state's military structures and weapon industry and develop weapon technologies, to suppress criticism of Israeli policies, as well as systematically deny Palestinian academics their freedom of speech and students their right to education. We stress that the boycott does not concern collaboration with individual Israeli scholars who distance themselves from the settler colonial occupation, apartheid and the current escalating mass killings of Palestinian civilians.
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Pull all economic investments that are complicit in Israeli illegal settlements immediately. As scholars, we are severely disturbed by several Scandinavian universities’ ongoing economic investments in Israeli companies based in illegal settlements, and companies that produce technologies to uphold the apartheid system.
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Strengthen collaborations with, and support for, Palestinian scholars as well as all colleagues, students and academic workers who are facing repercussions for speaking out against the Israeli state and its violences.
- Promote researchers, knowledge production, and teaching in fields such as decolonization, Middle Eastern and European colonial history, imperialism, racism, international law, human rights studies, peace and conflict studies and other fields that support a base of informed scientific knowledge on the matter.
In solidarity with the people of Palestine,
To read the original statement: Click here