Pandor calls for intensifying SA campus activism against Israel

Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor has called for greater university and student activism and boycotts against Israel for what she called its “scholasticide” in Gaza: “the systemic destruction of education.”

On Wednesday he was delivering the second annual Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Lecture at the University of Johannesburg. Abu Akleh was an Al Jazeera journalist who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers while reporting in the West Bank two years ago. Most Palestinians and their supporters believe it was an assassination, although Israel says it was an accident.

“If Shireen were alive today, she would have been in the trenches of Gaza, reporting day and night on the atrocities that were occurring in the hope that the world would take notice and show solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Pandor said.

The topic of his conference was “The Responsibility of Academia in Times of Genocide,” and Pandor said that on April 18 the UN Human Rights Office had raised a serious alarm about the systematic destruction of the Palestinian education system.

“The report states that ‘with more than 80% of schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed, it may be reasonable to ask whether there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as ‘scholasticide’: the systemic destruction of the education through the arrest, detention or murder of teachers, students and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure.’”

Pandor said that after six months of Israel’s military attack, more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors had been killed in Gaza, and more than 7,819 students and 756 teachers had been injured.

“At least 60% of educational facilities, including 13 public libraries, have been damaged or destroyed and at least 625,000 primary and secondary school students and more than 100,000 university students in Gaza do not have access to education.

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has damaged or destroyed nine out of 10 schools… Between October 2023 and January of this year, the IDF bombed all universities in Gaza,” Pandor said.

“Consequently, Gaza’s cherished intellectual monuments, including the Islamic University of Gaza, the North Gaza and Tubas branches of Al-Quds Open University and the Palestinian Technical University have all been destroyed.

“Another 195 heritage sites, 227 mosques and three churches have also been damaged or destroyed, including the Gaza Central Archive, which contains 150 years of history. The University of Israa, the last remaining university in Gaza, was demolished by the Israeli army on January 17 of this year.”

A clear message

Pandor said: “The international academic community should have sent a clear message that those who attack schools and universities in other states will be held accountable. And that responsibility for these violations will include the end of collaboration, the end of donations, the end of financial support.

“My expectation is that after our conversation you will become activists,” he added. “As educators, advocates, activists, civil society and state structures, we must all play a role in the global struggle in search of truth and justice.

“It is our collective responsibility to raise our voices in solidarity with the people of Palestine fighting for their survival amid the genocidal campaign being waged against them.”

Pandor said South Africa’s higher education institutions had a special responsibility to show solidarity with Palestine because of this country’s history.

He noted that in November last year, more than 1,000 people involved in higher education in South Africa signed an open letter of solidarity with Palestine and called on South African universities and the South African Academy of Sciences to do the same.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of the Western Cape had made official statements calling for a ceasefire and immediate humanitarian aid to Gaza.

“The UCT Senate has resolved that no UCT academic should collaborate with any academic on any research project if they are identified with the Israel Defense Forces.

“The majority in the Senate voted in favor of support for Palestinian scholars and the right to have debates about Zionism without being accused of anti-Semitism. Members of the Stellenbosch University Senate have called for an end to the brutal and barbaric destruction of Gaza saying “no crime can justify genocidal retaliatory actions.”

“Unfortunately, the Senate did not pass a resolution on the crisis between Israel and Palestine on ‘Genocide and destruction of scholarships and education in Gaza’, as it was not approved by the majority of members of the Senate.”

Pandor applauded Fort Hare for taking one of the firmest positions, including a commitment not to establish institutional ties with Israeli institutions complicit in “supporting settler colonial oppression and apartheid and serious violations of human rights, including development of weapons, military doctrines and legal justifications.” for the massive and indiscriminate attacks against the Palestinians.”

Pandor said Fort Hare needed to join other more powerful universities in South Africa to take such a strong stance.

Greater activism

“We are also encouraged by the growing mobilization on university campuses around the world in support of the just cause for freedom and justice for the people of Palestine.”

He noted that Columbia University in New York had been the site of these protests and had also been the first American university to divest from apartheid South Africa.

“We hope that this unprecedented activism by students in the United States will also spur greater activism among student movements here in South Africa and generate more vocal support from our university administrators, some of whom have remained silent,” Pandor said.

Former Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils praised the University of Johannesburg for what it was doing for Palestine.

Palestinian-Canadian lawyer, activist and former peace negotiator Diana Buttu, who participated in the event by video, praised the South African government for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on genocide charges earlier this year .

She said Shireen Abu Akleh had been a “excellent reporter” and a “dear friend to me and hundreds of others.”

“Shireen’s murder did not occur in a vacuum. “It was the result of years of Israel attacking journalists and, in particular, Al Jazeera journalists.” He said Israel had bombed the offices of the AP news agency and Al Jazeera in the Gaza Strip.

Since the current conflict began on October 7, 2023 following a Hamas attack on Israel that left around 1,200 people dead, “Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinian journalists. “So they’ve done this for a deliberate reason, which is that Israel wants to make sure that you don’t see what’s happening, because I firmly believe that once you see, you can’t unsee it.”

If Abu Akleh were alive, she would have exposed many stories about the war that the Western media got wrong, in part because “they have been complicit in this genocide.” DM