PACBI Statement

Open Letter to the Organizers and Participants of the Conference on “Trauma in Israel-Palestine: Science, Politics, Images”

October 6, 2011

none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">Occupied Ramallah

 

none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has recently learned, with great disappointment, that the Centre "History of Knowledge"/ Zentrum "Geschichte des Wissens" of the Federal Institute for Technology (ETH) and Zürich University are planning to convene a conference titled, “Trauma in Israel-Palestine: Science, Politics, Images,” to be held between 27-29 October 2011. 

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">We are particularly concerned with the conference’s breach of the guidelines set forth by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and with the way it promotes the normalization of relations with Israel and, thus, whitewashing Israel’s violations of international law. 

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">The Palestinian call for BDS was launched in 2004 and appealed to international academics and cultural workers to refuse to participate in events that serve to equate the occupier and the occupied [1] and thus contribute to the continuation of injustice.  Following this, in 2005, an overwhelming majority in Palestinian civil society called for an all-encompassing BDS campaign based on the principles of human rights, justice, freedom and equality [2].  The BDS movement adopts a nonviolent, morally consistent strategy to hold Israel accountable to the same human rights standards as other nations. It is asking artists to heed the boycott call until “Israel withdraws from all the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem; removes all its colonies in those lands; agrees to United Nations resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinian refugees rights; and dismantles its system of apartheid." [3] 

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">In particular, your conference violates clause 6 of the “PACBI Guidelines for the International Academic Boycott of Israel,” in which it calls for a boycott of:

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none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal">Palestinian/Arab-Israeli collaborative research projects or events, especially those funded by the various EU and international grant-giving bodies

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">The guidelines further state,

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margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal">As in the cultural field, events and projects (such as those involving educators, psychologists, or historians) involving Palestinians and/or Arabs and Israelis that promote “balance” between the “two sides” in presenting their respective narratives or “traumas,” as if on par, or are otherwise based on the false premise that the colonizers and the colonized, the oppressors and the oppressed, are equally responsible for the “conflict,” are intentionally deceptive, intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible. Such events and projects, often seeking to encourage dialogue or “reconciliation between the two sides” without addressing the requirements of justice, promote the normalization and perpetuation of oppression and injustice. All such events and projects that bring Palestinians and/or Arabs and Israelis together, unless based on unambiguous recognition of Palestinian rights and framed within the explicit context of opposition to occupation and other forms of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, are strong candidates for boycott. mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">[4]

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">In framing your conference as an exchange between Palestinian and Israeli professionals, you have, intentionally or not, set up the Europeans as mere observers in a conflict that appears to be between two equal parties. Rana Nashashibi, of the Palestinian Counseling Center (PCC), has written your colleagues a letter regarding the matter of this conference where she eloquently expresses this point:

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margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica">I am not sure I understand the international dimension of the conference where the Israeli and Palestinian professionals are invited to present their ideas and work to a German and Swiss audience who are invited to hear and discuss what the two parties are presenting.  While you mention in your email that there are other situations where trauma may have had a national dimension, it is strange that practitioners from these places are not invited…to present their work so as to compare notes and experiences and draw conclusions.  This leads me to conclude that we are invited as a study case or as another attempt by European parties to bring Palestinians and Israelis to sit together in a superimposed fake reality of dialoguing. [ edn5">5]

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">Nashashibi follows this up by highlighting the main problems of framing a conference on trauma as one that equally afflicts Palestinians and Israelis, and as one in which trauma should be dealt with through academic collaboration independent of the overarching politics, and outside of Israel’s ongoing violations of international law and its practices of occupation, colonialism and apartheid.  Nashashibi writes,

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none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica">I object to drawing parallels between the current and continuous trauma of the Palestinian people and that of the Israeli people and think [it] is baseless.  For one thing the Israelis have chosen to be the perpetrators who are systematically and continuously violating Palestinian rights.   In this context of occupation the Palestinians can only be considered as the traumatized who have no control over their abuse, while Israelis who might be traumatized do have control by stopping their belligerence.  Having said that I don’t mean to undermine the trauma suffered by the perpetrators, in this case the Israelis, as a result of their actions.  On the contrary I believe that this self inflicting trauma which is manifesting itself in psychological disorders or escalation of violence in the Israeli society should be addressed, but separately, and in a different context, mainly inside the Israeli society and among Israeli professionals in the mental health scene who should use these consequences as a way to pressure their government to stop its belligerence.

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">In light of the rising BDS movement that has overwhelming support and consensus within Palestinian civil society, and in view of the growing support for this movement among international civil society and increasingly amongst Israelis, we urge you to frame this conference as one of resistance to Israel’s violations of international law, and especially by making clear that the conference organizers and participants are committed to the three demands of the BDS movement stated above and reformulated here as: equality, justice and freedom for Palestinians.  Otherwise, we think the conference should be abandoned altogether, and we would urge all conscientious academics and professionals invited to this conference to withdraw their participation.

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">Finally, we end with the words of Nashashibi in her letter to your colleagues:  

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margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica">What does not [cease] to surprise me is the role of the Europeans in dealing with the Palestinian Israeli conflict.  As supposedly a "neutral third party" to the conflict, their primary role in my opinion is to act to stop the suffering and end the occupation before they venture on a process of rapprochement between the two people.

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none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none" class="MsoNormal"> Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">We continue to remain equally shocked at the inability of many in Europe to reflect critically on their own position in this conflict and hope that you will realize the rationale behind our position.

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Helvetica">PACBI

Helvetica">pacbi@pacbi.org

Helvetica">www.PACBI.org

Notes

 

 

October 6, 2011
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