Israeli Universities Open Letter on Gaza – 3 universities fail to sign
JVL Introduction
1,400 faculty members in Israel recently signed a letter to Netanyahu noting the obligation of academics not to be silent in the face of the “mass killing, starvation and destruction that Israel is wreaking in Gaza”.
Sadly, one’s expectation of Israeli institutions is not high, so it was a small ray of light that some Israeli University heads followed with a protest letter of their own.
It is signed by the heads of Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University, the Weizmann Institute, the Technion and the Open University. The heads of Haifa, Ben-Gurion, Bar-Ilan and Ariel have not signed.
That Ariel, the settler university deep in the West Bank, “born in sin” and “designated a university in sin”, didn’t sign is no surprise. The failure of the other three is.
As this Haaretz lead editorial says, their failure “to show a principled backbone is hard to explain. They will not live this down.”
RK
This article was originally published by Haaretz on Tue 29 Jul 2025. Read the original here.
Shame on the three Israeli Universities that failed to sign their colleagues' open letter on Gaza
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The shaming of Israel grows with each passing day as more and more voices, including from inside Israel, speak out against Israel’s genocide and demand some measure of justice for and humane treatment of the Palestinian people. What Israel is doing has long ago lost every last ounce of justification, and not one outraged word that Israel utters against its detractors can do anything to make its actions seem less of the thorough evil that by any reasonable standards they are. And yet, horrendously, there are still those who would either openly or tacitly support Israel’s aggressions and so oppose any move made to end them. It would seem from the non-action of these three universities that not even being highly-educated, knowledgeable and trained in the art of rationality can save some people from placing their trust in the most irrational, vacuous, utterly bestial ideals. They share their government’s shame. Thank God for those who signed this letter. Standing up against the Netanyahu machine is not easy: but it is increasingly necessary.
Ariel is (of course) on illegally occupied territory.
And where are the Palestinian institutions demanding Hamas to return the hostages ?