160 Academics Urge EU to Stop Funding ‘Israeli’ Universities Complicit In Human Rights Violations

By Staff, Agencies

A group of 160 academics called on the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union [EU], to exclude all ‘Israeli’ universities complicit in the regime’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights from its taxpayer-funded research programs.

In a letter sent to the Commission, the signatories took aim at Horizon 2020, the largest ever European funding program for research and innovation that has a budget of around $112 billion through to 2027.

The academics acknowledged that the EU has already taken a “principled position” in its funding guidelines for Horizon 2020 by prohibiting the allocation of funds to ‘Israeli’ entities located in the occupied Palestinian territory.

They, however, called on the European Commission “to extend the prohibition of European research funds to include ‘Israeli’ institutions complicit in ‘Israel’s’ violations of Palestinian human rights, regardless of where they are situated.”

“Indeed, the complicity of ‘Israeli’ academic institutions in ‘Israel’s’ structural violence perpetrated against Palestinians across historic Palestine has been broadly and systematically documented,” they added.

The academics also said that “the crux of the problem goes beyond the occupied Palestinian territory,” and that there is growing consensus among human rights organizations that the regime is practicing apartheid inside the so-called Green Line — a pre-1967 demarcation line set out in an armistice agreement that separates the occupied territories from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

“Given the evidence of the relationship between ‘Israeli’ academic institutions and the systematic state practices of settler colonialism, and the crimes of apartheid and persecution, which have escalated again in ‘Israel’s’ latest round of violence, we urge you to exercise your leverage and ensure the relationship with ‘Israel’s’ academic institutions is based on respect for international law and human rights,” they said.

Calls for boycotting ‘Israel’ have intensified after the Zionist regime's bombing campaign on Gaza in May that killed at least 260 Palestinians, including 66 children and 39 women, and injured 1948 others.

Some 400 New York University [NYU] affiliates signed a letter calling for "non-cooperation" with the NYU Tel Aviv campus.

Over 600 musicians issued a boycott of performances in the occupied territories until the Tel Aviv regime ends its occupation of Palestine.