University staff criticise fellow academics over letter calling for Israeli boycott

A group of Irish university staff have written to The Irish Times distancing themselves from a letter written by fellow academics calling for a boycott of Israeli universities, and expressed disappointment that the latter group’s letter did not call for the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The letter, published in The Irish Times on Tuesday, also criticised a perceived use of “perfunctory language” by their fellow academics in describing the October 7th attacks by Hamas on Israel. The letter condemned both the “atrocities committed by Hamas and the ongoing bombardment of Gaza”.

“Our colleagues’ silence with respect to the continued suffering of Jews and non-Jews abducted by Hamas and the suffering of their families is incomprehensible and should prompt some soul searching,” the letter read.

On Saturday more than 600 academic staff signed a letter published in The Irish Times strongly condemning Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, and called on “all universities in Ireland to immediately sever any existing institutional partnerships or affiliations with Israeli institutions”. The letter referred to the October 7th attacks as an “incursion by Palestinian armed groups” that “included criminal attacks against civilians”.

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Tuesday’s letter also laid out the academics’ disagreement with the description of Israel’s military operations in Gaza since October 7th as “genocide”.

“Any war, and this war in particular, is a terrible outbreak of brutality that claims innocent lives. But not all war is genocide, certainly not this war which was started when Hamas carried out its massacre of civilians on October 7th.”

This, the letter read, does not excuse Israel’s “excessive use of violence that consciously aggravate an already extreme humanitarian crisis”, or the violence of Jewish settlers against innocent Palestinians.

Saturday’s letter described Israel’s military operations in Gaza since the October 7th attacks as “a campaign of ethnic cleansing, and according to many experts, genocidal violence”.

The letter also described rhetoric used by Israeli leaders in referring to Palestinians as “dehumanising”, echoing language “typically associated with genocidal incitement and intent”.

“In the past three weeks, Israel’s military acts have matched those words, killing more than 9,000 Palestinians inside Gaza, including some 3,760 children (more than the annual number of children killed in the rest of the world’s armed conflicts combined).”

The letter noted that leading Jewish and Israeli scholars of Holocaust and genocide experts have called Israel’s actions as “a textbook case of genocide”.

Academics writing on Tuesday said they opposed a boycott of Israeli universities “at a time when more dialogue is needed, not less”.

“Universities are vital bridges for connecting critical and dissenting voices worldwide.

“There are indeed Israeli universities that have voiced clear opposition to policies of the current ultranationalist coalition, which are aimed at curtailing human rights.”