Israel Snapshot: Israeli Academics Boycott the Occupation
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 0:23
On Sunday, 165 Israeli academics issued a petition in which they vow not to take part in academic functions at the Ariel University Center, located in the West Bank. The petition says:
We, academics from a variety of fields and from all the institutions of higher learning in Israel, herein express publicly our opposition to the continued occupation and the establishment of settlements. Ariel was built on occupied land. Only a few kilometers away from flourishing Ariel, Palestinians live in villages and refugee camps under unbearably harsh conditions and without basic human rights. Not only do they not have access to higher education, some do not even have running water. These are two different realities that create a policy of apartheid.
It was established for the sole purpose of preventing the Palestinians from creating an independent state and thus preventing us, citizens of Israel, from having the chance to ever live in peace in this region.