Academic Freedom Under Fire As Gaza Burns

During the war on Gaza, we witness Western genocide-enabling silence, not only at the political level but also among the large sector of media and academia. The refusal of Western governments to call for a ceasefire is making them accomplices to crimes against humanity. We can roughly speak of a division within the international community: the Global North — heavily dominated by the Israeli lobby — has mostly sided with the Israeli regime’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people (with some exceptions) while the Global South (also with some exceptions) in favor of permanent ceasefire and a peace process.

In this talk, I will advance four factors that can explain the Western pro-genocidal Israeli position, namely, the memory of the Holocaust between sincerity and certain instrumentalization and guilt-washing; the idea that Israel as a secular state that can do no wrong; Islamophobia and the image of Hamas, seen only through its religious agenda and not national liberation one; and Euro-American colonial legacy.