During the past seven months, the State of Israel has killed more than 5,000 academics and students including 95 deans and professors and three university presidents. All universities in the Gaza Strip, some 200 schools as well as archives, libraries and museums have been looted and either partially or totally destroyed. As many scholars have pointed out, this qualifies as ‘scholasticide’ or ‘educide’, that is the intentional and systematic destruction of the material and immaterial infrastructures for research and education. In response, scholars, students and workers across the world have raised up in this historical moment to decolonise our universities and organise for Palestinian freedom. In this conversation panel we will discuss the historical role of Israeli higher education institutions in supporting Palestinian dispossession. And we will also consider the ways scholars, students and workers are calling on academic institutions to take a principled stand in solidarity with Palestinians by demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire and by ending any collaboration with the arms industry and Israel's universities.
Maya Wind is a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Her scholarship broadly investigates how settler societies and global systems of militarism and policing are sustained, with a particular focus on the reproduction and export of Israeli security expertise. She has received support for her research from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Killam Laureates Trust. Her first book, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (Verso 2024), investigates the complicity of Israeli universities in Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid.
Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian human rights defender and co-founder of the Palestinian-led BDS movement for Palestinian rights. He is a co-recipient of the 2017 Gandhi Peace Award. He holds a bachelor's and a master's degrees in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, NY, and is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy (ethics) at the University of Amsterdam. His commentaries and views have appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, among many others.
Marc Botenga is a member of the Workers’ Party of Belgium, which he represents in the European Parliament as a member of the Left group.
Samier Khaled is a Belgian-Palestinian medical student at the KU Leuven, and initiator of the national campaign Break Up With Israel."
The event is open to the public. Entry will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis or FOLLOW ONLINE via the livestream.
This event is organised by OMAM (ULB), Brussels Centre for Urban Studies (VUB), Fatima Mernissi Chair – RHEA (VUB), VUB Palestine Solidarity Network, and Law and Development Research Group (UAntwerp) in collaboration with the Palestine Solidarity Network, BACBI, UA Palestine Solidarity Group, Break Up with Israel, Front de solidarité pour la Palestine de l’ULB, BIRMM (VUB) and Citylab Pianofabriek.
About Maya Wind's book
Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. In her new book, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (Verso 2024), Maya Wind shatters this myth and documents how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights.
The book draws on extensive research, showing how Israeli universities serve as pillars of Israel's system of oppression against Palestinians. Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructures and research laboratories, all serve Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently repress student dissent. Towers of Ivory and Steel is a powerful exposé of Israeli academia’s ongoing and active complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial project.
Part of a Belgian book tour
KULeuven May-21 Metaforum Current Events Lecture - The war in Gaza. What is the role of the university?, at 19.30-21.30h in Aula Max Weber, Parkstraat 51, Leuven, register here
UGent May-22 Public Lecture: “Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli universities deny Palestinian freedom” by Maya Wind, at 11-13h in Auditorium E - Technicum 2, register here
UHasselt May-23 Book presentation: “Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli universities deny Palestinian freedom” by Maya Wind, at 17h, Capus Diepenbeek Aula H5, register here
