After weeks of encampment on the university campus, the student intifada convinces the academic Senate
“The University has started preliminary work for the development of an ad hoc regulation on dual use, which should be concluded by the summer break and, in the meantime, is proceeding, in recent days, with a survey of the agreements in force in the University that may fall into the case envisaged by the European regulations, and has suspended the Erasmus agreements within the program KA171 and KA220-HED in force with Israeli universities. Furthermore, no new agreements will be signed with Israeli universities until the current crisis is over.”
This is what we read in the document approved unanimously this morning by the Academic Senate of the University of Palermo. A historic day for the student intifada movement which for weeks has occupied the university campus with tents to obtain the interruption of research agreements with Israeli universities and companies complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and with Italian companies that support policies warlike.
This morning – for the second time – a delegation from the student movement met with the Academic Senate during an extraordinary session called to discuss the requests made. After hours of waiting the delegation emerged triumphant. “It’s a historic day – they said into the megaphone –. This is a small but big victory. A step forward. The goal, however, always remains the end of the genocide, of the Zionist occupation, the liberation of all Palestinian political prisoners and the return of the refugees to Palestine”.
In any case, it’s a celebration for the kids who guarded the Palazzo Steri in Palermo all morning while the discussion between senators and the student delegation was underway.
The ongoing siege in Gaza “reminds us of our institutional duties, also in relation to what has been stated by international judicial and political bodies such as the recent request for the arrest, made by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, of the leaders of Hamas and the Israeli government for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the document reads.
For this reason the University “proposes to establish procedures based on maximum transparency due diligence in evaluating institutional agreements and proposals for scientific collaboration with universities, research centers and companies that may relate to the development of technologies dual use for military purposes, involving the risk of use for ‘internal repression or to commit serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law’, as stated in EU Regulation 821/2021 on dual-use products (civilian and military)”. Furthermore, support measures are being studied for the Palestinian education system “aimed at guaranteeing the right to study through the establishment of humanitarian corridors and scholarships and the identification of dedicated funds aimed at students, researchers, teachers”. The University, in fact, “will use the partnerships already in force with Palestinian universities and is evaluating the ongoing campaigns on this topic at a national and international level”.
UniPa is also studying initiatives aimed at “promoting information and training, within the university and in the territory, also in collaboration with national and international networks”. “The meetings, seminars and cultural activities will be aimed at deconstructing the stereotyped and ideological interpretation of the clash between civilizations and religions which polarizes the current public debate and will make use of the indications, requests and proposals coming from the teaching staff and students”, the document continues.
These initiatives and the implications of this morning’s unanimous approval will be presented to the academic community and the city in a public meeting to be held on June 19th. A historic result that makes Palermo the first university in Italy to suspend agreements with Israel. Thus demonstrating that the academic boycott works.
Photo © ACFB
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