Email: right2edu@birzeit.edu | Phone: 0097(0)2-298-2059
In the past week former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has spoken out again about a “whole civilisation destroyed” in Gaza, just as Israel again squeezes the flow of fuel for power stations. To these two latest reminders that Israel is maintaining a state of siege of its 1.5 million people, we would add our own experience.
We are some of the 100 academics and health professionals who were booked to participate in a WHO co-sponsored conference in Gaza, “Seige and Mental Health”. Israel requires those wishing to enter Gaza to apply for permits, and the WHO itself made the applications well in advance. Israel turned them all down en bloc just one week before the conference was due to start, clearly a political decision intended to wreck it. We demonstrated in protest at the Gaza Erez crossing but to no avail.
Those opposing calls for an academic boycott of Israel regularly cite ‘academic freedom’, yet there has been not a murmur of protest from Israeli universities and medical establishment at this latest violation.
Signed:
Dr. Ghada Karmi – UK
Dr. Alice Rothchild – USA
Prof. Elsa First – USA
Prof. Federico Allodi – Canada
Dr. Alan Meyers – USA
Dr. Ben Alofs – UK
Dr. William Slaughter – USA
Dr. Derek Summerfield – UK
Dr. Nancy Murray – USA
Ms. Victoria Brittain – UK
Ms. Lotte Bush – Denmark
Mr. Tom Suarez – USA
Dr. Eleanor Roffman – USA
Ms. Marie Pierre Maystre – Switzerland
Dr. Robert Haynes – USA
Dr. Geraldine Haynes – USA
Ms. Marga Kapka – USA
Dr. Henderikus Taatgen – USA
Dr. Renae Grant – USA
Ms. Christiane Kolbery – Norway
Mr. Jean-Baptiste Rasson – Switzerland
Dr. Ellen Isaacs – USA
Dr. Sveinn Runar Hauksson – Iceland
Ms. Jean Entine – USA
Ms. Valentina Maria Spada – Spain
Ms. Susan Jacoby – USA
Ms. Miryam Meerschwam – Holland
Dr Angelo Stefanini – Italy
Dr James Deutsch – Canada
Dr Dennis Fox – USA
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