The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is gravely alarmed that the 11th EBS (South Korea Educational Broadcasting System) International Documentary Festival taking place in Seoul between 25-31 August 2014, is to include a conference on the theme of ‘the frontier of world documentary – Israel’. The festival is also sponsored by the Israeli embassy in Seoul.

We particularly appreciate that you distinguish between Jews in Britain and the Israeli State. We could not be further apart from the Israeli state. The insistence of the organisers of the UK Jewish Film Festival on including sponsorship from the Israeli Embassy

As Jewish survivors and descendents of survivors of the Nazi genocide we unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine.

Occupied Palestine – 5 August 2014: The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) strongly condemns the Israeli bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza,[3] its partial or full destruction of scores of schools, including some run by the UN and designated as humanitarian shelters, and its murder of more than four hundred children, mostly school-aged, among other Palestinian civilians during its ongoing massacre in Gaza.[4]

We address you as a group of employees, faculty members, PhD students and researchers of the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), in The Hague. The ISS is an educational, research and policy institution, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam.  We belong to very diverse disciplinary backgrounds, but we all equally share social justice as a major inspiration of our work.

The war Israel is currently waging against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza is a continuation of its occupation and blockade of Gaza over many years; its violation of international laws; its apartheid policies and day-to-day violence against people in Gaza. It has become a truism that Gaza has for long been “an open air prison” for its men, women and children, making it impossible for them to live normal lives, leave alone move forward on the road to self determination.

The following letter calling on scholars and librarians within Middle East studies to boycott Israeli academic institutions was submitted in the name of the below signatories to Jadaliyya on 6 August 2014.