Israeli academic to speak in Dublin and Cork in support of academic boycott of Israel
Professor Haim Bresheeth, a renowned Israeli-born academic and documentary film-maker, will be speaking in colleges in Dublin and Cork next week in support of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) and its conference resolution supporting an academic boycott of Israel.
At its Annual Congress on Thursday 4th April 2013, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) became the first academic union in Europe to endorse the Palestinian call for an academic boycott of Israel. The motion, which refers to Israel as an “apartheid state”, requests “all members to cease all cultural and academic collaboration with Israel”.
The TUI’s vote has prompted international praise and outrage, including an angry editorial in the Jerusalem Post and letters of support to TUI from Palestinian and Israeli academics. In a letter saluting the TUI, Palestinian unions representing lecturers, university employees, teachers and writers said the clarity of the union’s statement was “unprecedented”. They also highlighted the importance of such solidarity actions, invoking Irish support for those struggling against South African apartheid in previous decades.
Professor Haim Bresheeth is a filmmaker and a film studies scholar who has also published widely on Israel/Palestine. His books include the best-selling Introduction to the Holocaust. Formerly Professor of Film Studies at the University of East London, he now lectures in the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. In 2012, he completed the film London is Burning, on the August 2011 London Riots.
Professor Bresheeth will draw on his experience as an Israeli academic – before moving to London in 2002 he was Dean of the School of Media, Film and Cultural Studies, at Sapir College in Israel. He will explain how Israeli academic institutions are intermeshed with the Israeli armed forces and deeply implicated in the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories conquered in 1967. He will express his strong support for the boycott motion recently passed by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland, relating this to the actions of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) of which he is a founder member, and broadening the discussion to cover the wider BDS campaign.
Speaking about the TUI boycott motion, Prof. Bersheeth stated: “The Apartheid regime in South Africa would still be there today, but for the concerted BDS action of millions of ordinary people all round the globe; they fought the shame and violence of Apartheid with resolute non-violent civic action, and won. To end the occupation and Apartheid in Palestine, we must do the same – isolate the colonial entity and make it an international pariah, until it will bow to global pressure and agree to end this brutal occupation regime and bring about just peace. There is no other way!”
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Professor Bresheeth will be in CORK on TUESDAY, 23rd April, for a series of talks in University College Cork. Prof. Bresheeth will wear two “hats” during his visit to Cork. In one lecture, he will give us the benefit of his knowledge as a scholar of film studies. In another lecture (which will be delivered twice during the day to facilitate as many people as possible), Professor Bresheeth will advocate the need for an academic boycott of Israel.
1pm – Lecture 1 – The TUI BDS motion: The need to boycott the Israeli academic/military/occupation complex – Room W5, West Wing, Main Quadrangle, UCC (hosted by Academics for Palestine) – more information
6pm – Lecture 2 – The TUI BDS motion: The need to boycott the Israeli academic/military/occupation complex – Room W5, West Wing, Main Quadrangle, UCC (hosted by Academics for Palestine) – Room W5, West Wing, Main Quadrangle, UCC (hosted by Academics for Palestine) – more information
8pm – Lecture 3 – The Nakba on film: Representations of trauma in Palestinian Cinema – Room W5, West Wing, Main Quadrangle, UCC (hosted by Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Cork) – more information
Professor Bresheeth will travel to DUBLIN the following day, WEDNESDAY 24th April and give a further talk in the DIT Aungier Street.
1pm – Israeli apartheid and the TUI’s support for an academic boycott – Room G-019, Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier Street, Dublin 2 (Academics for Palestine) – more information