PalSoc’s protest against the decision to host the Israeli Ambassador Hon Prosor was done for a number of different and related reasons. Firstly, we felt that the University’s decision to invite him and/or host him on campus was a very antagonistic action given that the senior management must be aware of the fact that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is the subject of ongoing heated debate and a recent large solidarity protest in the form of a student occupation in opposition to Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Moreover, the decision to host the Israeli Ambassador, at a time when a respected international report (Goldstone) has indicted the state he represents for committing “war crimes”, coupled with the seemingly underhand way in which his visit was handled has led many of our members and supporters to the regrettable conclusion that the University is taking a pro-Israel stance.
Further, we object to the fact that the event was not advertised in an appropriate manner in which it could have been accessible to our members and the larger student and academic body of the University. The talk was “publicized” as a “public lecture” yet very few people actually knew about the event being scheduled. PalSoc was alerted of the event only two days before it was actually supposed to happen, and the actual time and venue remained anonymous until a few hours before the talk. A small number of our members did manage to acquire tickets for the “public lecture” and we registered our protest in the form of asking tough questions in the Q&A session of what was purely a PR exercise. The majority of our members registered their protest in the form of a demonstration held outside the Great Hall; both forms of protest being perfectly legitimate exercises of our right to freedom of expression and protest, and at no point was the Ambassador’s right to free speech prevented.
We hope that the protest which was organized very last minute and yet involved about 50 people outside the venue and a number of individuals in the actual talk will put things on the Israel-Palestine issue back into perspective and that the University will reconsider its position within the debate.
A planned visit to the University of Nottingham campus today by the Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, has caused widespread dismay and consternation within the university community, notably among the Palestinian and Islamic student body.
The visit, during which the ambassador is due to deliver a lecture entitled “Israel’s Search For Peace” is due to take part at 6pm on Wednesday 4th November in the Great Hall of the Trent Building, on the University’s Main Campus.
The visit is set to be the focus of a massive demonstration by student protestors who are objecting to the University authorities’ apparent insensitivity and lack of judgment by inviting Mr Prosor less than 8 months after Israel’s internationally-condemned attack on the Gazan population in December 2008-January 2009. This attack left more than a thousand civilians dead and inflicted a huge human and material toll on the Gazan population.
The decision by the University authorities to invite Mr Prosor is even more surprising considering the campus was the stage of a substantial protest movement back in February. This protest was widely reported and involved the occupation of a lecture theatre by hundreds of students. The students were protesting against what many considered to be the tacit complicity of the University authorities in Israeli war crimes.
The occupation protest culminated in a large demonstration outside the Vice Chancellor’s office, under the banner of “Books Not Bombs”. Nottingham South MP Alan Simpson, who spoke at the protest, urged the University to stop dealing with arms manufacturers and to help supply educational materials and financial aids to Gaza’s students.
Many of those who took part in the protest action earlier this year have expressed their disappointment at what many deem to be a highly provocative decision by the University authorities. They feel that this seriously goes against promises that were made, in the wake of the student occupation, by senior management to seek better relations with the Palestinian and Islamic student body.
The protest being organised on Wednesday 4th November is aimed at raising awareness about Israeli war crimes as highlighted in the recent UN “Goldstone” report of October 2009. Some of the protestors have been seeking legal advice regarding the possibility of affecting a citizen’s arrest on the Ambassador were he to enter the campus.
Many student and human rights campaigners have urged the University to rescind the invitation and have vouched to use all peaceful and legal avenues available to them to ensure the lecture does not take place.
This is from the flyer that we given out by students at Nottingham University in response to the planned lecture by the Israeli Ambassador.
Mr Prosor.
Nottingham university authorities have decided to invite you to speak on our campus. It might interest you to know that the vast majority of staff and students at this University have not been informed of this supposedly “public” lecture. The reasons for this are clear: Far from being an occasion for an honest debate about important issues of the Middle East conflict, the intention has been to stage a friction-free PR initiative to allow you to preach your government’s talking points in front of a small, unrepresentative but sympathetic audience. Here are some facts your audience, and the wider Nottingham University community, might wish to consider before listening to your no-doubt carefully planned marketing pitch:
• Since its creation in 1948, the Israeli state has been engaging in a consistent and sustained programme of expulsion and occupation against the original Palestinian inhabitants within its territories (including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). In the words of former US president Jimmy Carter
- “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights.”
• Today, sixty years on, seven millions of Palestinians living in the Diaspora are still prevented from returning to their homes. Israel continues to deny them their basic human right of return.
• Israel is pressing ahead with its settlement expansion programme , deemed illegal under international law by the United Nations, building more homes and Jewish-only roads on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank, further fragmenting the Palestinian areas and making a Palestinian State a virtual impossibility.
• Israel is the only Nuclear power in the Middle East, in clear and blatant violation of the Non Proliferation treaty. It continues to reject international inspections of its nuclear facilities and instead has persistently tried to shift attention towards other countries including Iran.
• Your government, Mr Prosor, has been responsible for decades of brutal attacks on Palestinian civilian populations including the war crimes of the Gaza offensive of December 2008-January 2009, condemned by virtually every single reputable human rights NGO including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
• The Government you represent boasts a racist foreign minister who has advocated the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
• The government you represent has been building a wall declared illegal by the International Criminal Court. This wall is being mostly built on confiscated Palestinian land, inflicting further suffering and misery on thousands of Palestinian civilians.
• You government has imprisoned thousands of Palestinian civilians without charge, including Mohammad Othman, a Palestinian Human Rights Activist who has been under arrest without charge for the past 10 weeks simply for daring to tell the world about your government’s crimes.
• Your government has consolidated an apartheid regime that treats its own non-Jewish residents as second-class citizens and considers Palestinians under occupation as sub-human.
• Your government is a major purveyor of state terrorism, as such, it is an obstacle to peace not an agent of it.
Mr Ambassador, we realize your government requires you to join in its latest international PR charm offensive designed to pull wool over people’s eyes, but you can’t hide realities with spin and you can’t avoid the issues by changing the subject.
Everyone has seen the images of dead children and destroyed homes. Everyone has seen what Israel’s “search for peace” really means.
You represent a racist, war-mongering, inhumane regime. You know it, your government knows it, and after the massacre in Gaza, the whole world knows it too.
Mr Ambassador, you are not welcome on our campus.
Othman Sakallah, a Palestinian student who holds an offer to attend the London School of Economics (LSE) has tonight been elected as the Honorary President of the LSE Students’ Union.
Othman was unable to begin his Masters degree in Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems at LSE this year due to the siege inflicted by the Israeli government on Gaza, and the military attack on the civilian population which took place last winter. Othman’s home was destroyed in January, and he is currently living in a in a tent in the Gaza Strip with his wife and children. Othman is prevented from leaving Gaza by the Israeli government and denied of any viable way of independently funding his studies.
Pro-Palestine activists at the LSE argued that electing Othman as their Honorary President would uphold the values upon which the LSE was founded – the right to education for all and the protection of human intellect and dignity both inside and beyond the LSE.
Othman’s university application was supported by the Palestine Solidarity Inititiative (www.palestinesolidarity.org), who are now working with the LSE Students’ Union Palestine Society and student representatives to secure the necessary support that Othman and other Palestinian students need. to secure their right to education
In response to the news, Ziyaad Lunat an activist and co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Initiative stated, “This is great news, showing that once again LSE stands shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinian people who are subjected to a violent military occupation on a daily basis. We hope that this latest groundswell of support will make LSE see sense and provide the necessary financial and diplomatic support for Othman to be able to continue his education next year.”