Jewish academics in Scotland call out their universities’ complicity in genocide

JVL Introduction

Jewish academics in Scotland speak out against the complicity of Scottish universities in the genocide in Gaza.

We repost a report in the Scottish daily, The National, which quotes extensively from their letter

Arthur Balfour, Foreign Secretary at the time of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, was also Chancellor of Edinburgh University for four decades, from 1991 to 1930.

As the academics point out, this period as chancellor runs parallel to the implementation of settler colonialism in Palestine and Edinburgh’s recently published landmark Review of Race and History  has an insightful section on Palestine and Balfour’s legacy.

The Jewish Staff Network makes three demands: to reject the IHRA definition; to divest from all organisations which sustain or are linked to the Israeli state; and to actively engage with Palestinian scholars and institutions to rebuild Palestinian higher education.

RK

This article was originally published by The National on Tue 12 Aug 2025. Read the original here.