International and Israeli Sociologists in Solidarity with Hamas

A new petition titled “Sociologists in Solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian People” was posted recently, with some two thousand signatures from students and staff. It includes many Arabs and some Jews, including David Feldman, Professor of Sociology at Oberlin College, and two Israelis, Eliran Arazi from the Hebrew University and Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, and Dr. Eliran Bar-El, Lecturer in Sociology, University of York.

The petition states, “Sociology as a discipline is rooted in a recognition of relationships of power and inequality. As sociologists and human beings, we unreservedly condemn the latest violence against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank at the hands of the Israeli regime. Over the past seven days, the government of Israel has undertaken, in its own words, a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza—the second most densely populated place on the planet, home to 2.1 million residents, of which 1.7 million are refugees.”

Since Israel “claims” its actions are justifiable responses to the Hamas violence against Israeli civilians, “it has targeted the civilian Palestinian population of Gaza, while exhibiting little regard for the loss of human life. Using racist and dehumanizing language.” It then quotes Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who remarked, “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” Because in just ten days, “Israel has dropped over 6,000 bombs on Gaza, hit the Rafah crossing on the border to Egypt several times, targeted hospitals and ambulances, members of the press, universities, United Nations’ schools and relief offices, and used white phosphorus, a highly flammable munition that the United Nations has banned for use in dense civilian areas. Israeli forces have also cut off water, food, electricity, and medical supplies, which has pushed hospitals to a breaking point. This is an act of collective punishment.”

This, “in contravention of international law threatens the lives of over two million people, half of whom are children, with unimaginable violence and displacement.”

As of writing, ״over 4,385 Palestinians have been murdered, including a staggering 1,756 children, and over 13,561 injured. Israel’s military campaign has also displaced nearly half of Gaza’s population. It has unconscionably demanded that 1.1 million residents relocate from Northern to Southern Gaza in 24 hours, while simultaneously bombing caravans of those attempting to evacuate, and continuing to bomb the Southern part of Gaza. Calls for “evacuation” parallel the military offenses of 1948 and 1967, when Palestinians were forced to leave their homes and never allowed to return. The majority of people in Gaza are long-term refugees, and now again face genocide and ethnic cleansing. At the same time, Israeli settlers across the West Bank, recently armed by the Israeli government with 10,000 assault rifles, have targeted Palestinian civilians, with over 50 already murdered and two villages depopulated in the last week. We are witnessing internationally supported genocide. This latest siege comes as a continuation and escalation of the daily violence Palestinians faced for decades from Israeli colonization; an apartheid regime whose occupation is in clear violation of international law, but persists with the support of powerful governments globally. “

The petitioners are upset that the Western world sides with Israel and protest the “increased harassment of pro-Palestinian voices around the globe. We join people around the world who are raising their voices in protest of this assault on human life.”

They conclude that “As educators, it is our duty to stand by the principles of critical inquiry and learning, to hold the university as a space for conversation that foregrounds historical truths, and that contextualizes this past week’s violence in the context of 75 years of settler colonial occupation and European empire. We are also deeply troubled by the lack of concern and care for Palestinian and Muslim students at many of our universities, as well as efforts to clamp down on student organizing and free speech. We cannot sit back and witness the continuation of this genocidal war. We demand that our governments push for an immediate ceasefire. This stance follows in the tradition of the civil rights movement, anti-war and anti-apartheid protests of decades past. Aligning ourselves with these freedom struggles, we call on all of our colleagues to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and against settler colonialism, imperialism, and genocide.”

The petition is a classic example of the anti-Israeli activists in the academy. First, it decontextualizes the Israeli action from any empirical reality. Nowhere does the petition mention the brutal, ISIS-style attack of Hamas on the civilian population in the border communities. One would not know from the text that the terrorists burned people, raped women, beheaded babies, and kidnapped more than two hundred people to serve as hostages.

Second, Hamas is also hurting the civilian population in Gaza. The organization is in complete control of the enclave and, over the years, siphoned billions of dollars of international aid to build a virtual military fortress replete with missiles, rockets, drones, and miles of tunnel. Most egregiously, many, if not most, of the installations are built in or under public buildings, mosques, schools, and hospitals. This turns the civilians into human shields, a practice strictly prohibited in International Humanitarian Law (IHL). On the other hand, Israel has always tried to comport with IHL, even warning civilians to leave the premises before a strike.

As for the Israeli signatories, Eliran Arazi is a “PhD researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Advanced School in the Social Sciences (EHESS-Paris). He is currently also a research fellow at the Musée du quai Branly. Already in 2012, he signed a BDS petition.

Dr. Eliran Bar-El is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of York. In 2016, he also signed a BDS petition.

Clearly, by signing the sociologists petition, Arazi and Bar-El are signaling to Arab peers they are on their side, like many anti-Israel Israeli academics who are recruited to Western Universities.

Sociologists in Solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian People

Sociology as a discipline is rooted in a recognition of relationships of power and inequality. As sociologists and human beings, we unreservedly condemn the latest violence against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank at the hands of the Israeli regime.

Over the past seven days, the government of Israel has undertaken, in its own words, a “complete siege” of Gaza—the second most densely populated place on the planet, home to 2.1 million residents, of which 1.7 million are refugees. While claiming its actions are a justifiable response to recent Hamas violence against Israeli civilians, it has targeted the civilian Palestinian population of Gaza, while exhibiting little regard for the loss of human life. Using racist  and dehumanizing language, Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, remarked, “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”

In just ten days, Israel has dropped over 6,000 bombs on Gaza, hit the Rafah crossing on the border to Egypt several times, targeted hospitals and ambulances, members of the press, universities, United Nations’ schools and relief offices, and used white phosphorus, a highly flammable munition that the United Nations has banned for use in dense civilian areas. Israeli forces have also cut off water, food, electricity, and medical supplies, which has pushed hospitals to a breaking point. This is an act of collective punishment, in contravention of international law, which threatens the lives of over two million people, half of whom are children, with unimaginable violence and displacement. As of writing, over 4,385 Palestinians have been murdered, including a staggering 1,756 children, and over 13,561 injured.

Israel’s military campaign has also displaced nearly half of Gaza’s population. It has unconscionably demanded that 1.1 million residents relocate from Northern to Southern Gaza in 24 hours, while simultaneously bombing caravans of those attempting to evacuate, and continuing to bomb the Southern part of Gaza. Calls for “evacuation” parallel the military offenses of 1948 and 1967, when Palestinians were forced to leave their homes and never allowed to return. The majority of people in Gaza are long-term refugees, and now again face genocide and ethnic cleansing. At the same time, Israeli settlers across the West Bank, recently armed by the Israeli government with 10,000 assault rifles, have targeted Palestinian civilians, with over 50 already murdered and two villages depopulated in the last week.

We are witnessing internationally supported genocide. This latest siege comes as a continuation and escalation of the daily violence Palestinians faced for decades from Israeli colonization; an apartheid regime whose occupation is in clear violation of international law, but persists with the support of powerful governments globally. In 2023 alone, the United States has sent $3.8 billion to prop up the Israeli military and consistently legitimized Israel’s human rights violations on a global stage. The European Union too has brazenly supported Israel’s aggression, while failing to reflect on the historical irony to “never again” commit genocide.

Furthermore, the dehumanizing language used by heads of state, military leaders, and journalists throughout the West, has begun to increase anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim sentiment and violence. This has already led to horrible consequences, like the stabbing murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year old Palestinian American child, a hate crime against a Sikh teen, and increased harassment of pro-Palestinian voices around the globe.

We join people around the world who are raising their voices in protest of this assault on human life. As educators, it is our duty to stand by the principles of critical inquiry and learning, to hold the university as a space for conversation that foregrounds historical truths, and that contextualizes this past week’s violence in the context of 75 years of settler colonial occupation and European empire. We are also deeply troubled by the lack of concern and care for Palestinian and Muslim students at many of our universities, as well as efforts to clamp down on student organizing and free speech.

We cannot sit back and witness the continuation of this genocidal war. We demand that our governments push for an immediate ceasefire. This stance follows in the tradition of the civil rights movement, anti-war and anti-apartheid protests of decades past. Aligning ourselves with these freedom struggles, we call on all of our colleagues to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and against settler colonialism, imperialism, and genocide.

Click here to become a signatory.