{"id":703,"date":"2009-01-02T04:52:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-02T12:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=703"},"modified":"2009-01-02T04:52:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-02T12:52:00","slug":"targeting-islamic-university-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/targeting-islamic-university-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Targeting Islamic University in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Targeting Islamic University<\/p>\n

Where’s the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

(This article originally appeared in Counterpunch<\/a>)<\/p>\n

By NEVE GORDON and JEFF HALPER<\/p>\n

Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel\u2019s bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week. Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, who organized the petition, has been silent, as have his co-signatories from Princeton, Northwestern, and Cornell Universities, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most others who signed similar petitions, like the 11,000 professors from nearly 1,000 universities around the world, have also refrained from expressing their outrage at Israel\u2019s attack on the leading university in Gaza. The artfully named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, which organized the latter appeal, has said nothing about the assault.<\/p>\n

While the extent of the damage to the Islamic University, which was hit in six separate airstrikes, is still unknown, recent reports indicate that at least two major buildings were targeted, a science laboratory and the Ladies\u2019 Building, where female students attended classes. There were no casualties, as the university was evacuated when the Israeli assault began on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Virtually all the commentators agree that the Islamic University was attacked, in part, because it is a cultural symbol of Hamas, the ruling party in the elected Palestinian government, which Israel has targeted in its continuing attacks in Gaza. Mysteriously, hardly any of the news coverage has emphasized the educational significance of the university, which far exceeds its cultural or political symbolism.<\/p>\n

Established in 1978 by the founder of Hamas \u2014 with the approval of Israeli authorities \u2014 the Islamic University is the first and most important institution of higher education in Gaza, serving more than 20,000 students, 60 percent of whom are women. It comprises 10 faculties \u2014 education, religion, art, commerce, Shariah law, science, engineering, information technology, medicine, and nursing \u2014 and awards a variety of bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees. Taking into account that Palestinian universities have been regionalized because Palestinian students from Gaza are barred by Israel from studying either in the West Bank or abroad, the educational significance of the Islamic University becomes even more apparent.<\/p>\n

Those restrictions became international news last summer when Israel refused to grant exit permits to seven carefully vetted students from Gaza who had been awarded Fulbright fellowships by the State Department to study in the United States. After top State Department officials intervened, the students\u2019 scholarships were restored \u2014 though Israel allowed only four of the seven to leave, even after appeals by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. \u201cIt is a welcome victory \u2014 for the students,\u201d opined The New York Times, and \u201cfor Israel, which should want to see more of Gaza\u2019s young people follow a path of hope and education rather than hopelessness and martyrdom; and for the United States, whose image in the Middle East badly needs burnishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding the importance of the Islamic University, Israel has tried to justify the bombing. An army spokeswoman told The Chronicle that the targeted buildings were used as \u201ca research and development center for Hamas weapons, including Qassam rockets. \u2026 One of the structures struck housed explosives laboratories that were an inseparable part of Hamas\u2019s research-and-development program, as well as places that served as storage facilities for the organization. The development of these weapons took place under the auspices of senior lecturers who are activists in Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Islamic University officials deny the Israeli allegations. Yet even if there is some merit in them, it is common knowledge that practically all major American and Israeli universities are engaged in research and development of military applications and receive money from the Pentagon and defense corporations. Weapon development and even manufacturing have, unfortunately, become major projects at universities worldwide \u2014 a fact that does not justify bombing them.<\/p>\n

By launching an attack on Gaza, the Israeli government has once again chosen to adopt strategies of violence that are tragically akin to the ones deployed by Hamas \u2014 only the Israeli tactics are much more lethal. How should academics respond to this assault on an institution of higher education? Regardless of one\u2019s stand on the proposed boycott of Israeli universities, anyone so concerned about academic freedom as to put one\u2019s name on a petition should be no less outraged when Israel bombs a Palestinian university. The question, then, is whether the university presidents and professors who signed the various petitions denouncing efforts to boycott Israel will speak out against the destruction of the Islamic University.<\/p>\n

Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and author of Israel\u2019s Occupation (University of California Press, 2008).<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeff Halper Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and author of An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel (Pluto Press, 2008). He can be reached at jeff@icahd.org.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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