Participants stressed that the goals of the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon are evidently much broader than a mere reaction to the capture of Israeli soldiers during military operations by the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance.

On the Palestinian front, the Israeli military operation comes in the context of a comprehensive integrated policy to destroy the infrastructure of the Palestinian society. It is another attempt to weaken the Palestinian entity and sabotage any hope for development.

In the meanwhile, Israel’s almost forgotten attack on Gaza continues unabated, with total impunity, leaving behind a trail of death, an imminent health disaster, and widespread destruction of vital infrastructure. Again, the pretext that all this criminal devastation, which already caused the death and injury of hundreds of innocent Palestinians, was intended to win the release of one Israeli soldier captured by the Palestinian resistance, does not stand the test of reality or logic.

In the meanwhile, Israel’s almost forgotten attack on Gaza continues unabated, with total impunity, leaving behind a trail of death, an imminent health disaster, and widespread destruction of vital infrastructure. Again, the pretext that all this criminal devastation, which already caused the death and injury of hundreds of innocent Palestinians, was intended to win the release of one Israeli soldier captured by the Palestinian resistance, does not stand the test of reality or logic.

As the UN, the EU and the international community by and large have failed the Palestinian people for decades, we address civil society organizations to take whatever steps, however small, to show their support for Palestine and rejection of Israeli genocidal war crimes. The experience of South Africa shows that the collective action of ordinary people who did not buy South African products, did not watch South African sports and did not have any relationship with South African academic and cultural institutions, was able to pressurize governments to isolate apartheid South Africa.

This meeting is part of a European Commission action on Biometric Identification, Technology and Ethics(BITE), and is being hosted by the Israeli Center for the Study of Bioterrorism.

Since the beginning of its current invasion of Gaza, and under the pretence of freeing a captured soldier, Israel has violated basic principles of international law and committed war crimes, as documented by Amnesty International, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, and other human rights bodies. These crimes and the resulting tragic death toll among Palestinian civilians are not surprising, given Israel’s long record of dehumanizing Palestinians and its collective punishment against them.

We believe that participation of international academics and intellectuals in conferences, festivals, or similar events in Israel not explicitly dedicated to ending Israel‘s illegal occupation and other forms of oppression only enhances Israel‘s image as a center of learning and the arts, and contributes to the propagation of the untruth that scholarship and politics or art and politics should be kept separate and that business as usual need not be disturbed by the intrusion of "politics." We are certain that as a conscientious scholar you do not subscribe to such form