Pro-Palestine students, protest at the Academic Senate of Florence

Florence, 14 June 2024 – Presidio in Piazza San Marco in Florence next Tuesday, June 18, on the occasion of the session of the Academic Senate of the Florentine University. It was promoted by Students for Palestine, who announced the presentation of a new motion to ask for the suspension of existing university tenders with Israel. “In the last session – he explains Francesca Barba, of the University of Florence – a motion for peace and against war was approved. What we ask is consequential. There has been some progress in the Senate. The mediation resulted in the creation of a commission that should evaluate the morality of agreements with third parties with respect to war contexts. While waiting for this commission to be structured and able to give its evaluation, we ask for a precautionary suspension of the agreements”, ten Israeli universities involved, “aware that the bureaucratic times are not those of war”. The students also underlined the support of a part of the teaching staff to their requests. Explain Arturo Gambassiamong the Florentine university students who are part of the Students for Palestine: “Many professors, to which are added researchers, doctoral students and technical-administrative staff who, since the beginning of the camp”, protested with tents in Piazza San Marco, which lasted 10 days in the second half of May, “they showed solidarity. Those who are against say that we are not for dialogue, that a boycott would foment war. We reply that we absolutely do not want to boycott the research, but we boycott war. In this sense we try to do knowledge a favor.”