Research network for Palestine, academic freedom and solidarity (GUPAS)

GUPAS’s seminars and advocacy work take as their point of departure the events in Gaza following Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023. Numerous experts in international law, genocide scholars, and human rights organisations have defined Israel’s actions as constituting genocide (UN Special Rapporteur; The Guardian; Amnesty International). In addition, as early as December 2023, South Africa presented compelling evidence in its application against Israel under the Genocide Convention before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), demonstrating that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. As part of the systematic documentation of Israel’s war crimes, the United Nations has also used the term “scholasticide”, referring to the deliberate destruction of a people’s academic and educational infrastructure.

The ICJ has not yet ruled on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza; however, on 26 January 2024 the Court ordered certain provisional measures, which entail that not only Israel but also all states that are parties to the Genocide Convention are obliged to act to prevent violations of the Convention (Genocide Convention, Article I). Since 2024, several independent sources, including UN bodies, have established that Israel has violated the laws of war and international law—not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank. A report (A/HRC/56/26) published in June 2024 by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel - established in 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) - concludes that both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes, and that Israel’s actions also constitute crimes against humanity. Furthermore, on 19 July 2024, the ICJ declared that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is contrary to international law. On this basis, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for starvation as a method of warfare and for crimes against humanity.

UN experts have also warned of the consequences of inaction:
“Failure to act now jeopardises the entire edifice of international law and the rule of law in world affairs.” 

Regardless of whether Israel’s actions in Gaza are ultimately legally recognised as genocide by a judicial body in the future, we are facing a situation that requires action. The United Nations has called on all states to sever relations with Israel that may contribute to sustaining Israel’s illegal occupation and war crimes. For this reason, GUPAS supports the demands for an academic boycott of Israeli universities, academic organisations, and research institutes. In our advocacy on this issue, we have referred to the book Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (2024) by the Jewish-Israeli scholar Maya Wind, which documents the deep involvement of Israeli universities in the occupation of Palestinian territories, ethnic cleansing, warfare, and the maintenance of the apartheid system that also shapes academic life. 

The academic boycott thus applies to academic institutions and organisations, not to individual Israeli scholars. GUPAS has organised seminars with several Israeli academics, such as Maya Wind and Ilan Pappé, as well as with the Palestinian sociologist Maisalon Dallashi, who is based at Tel Aviv University.

The debate on an academic boycott has also raised questions about academic freedom. While the academic boycott has repeatedly been criticised for restricting academic freedom, GUPAS has argued that Palestinian researchers, like many Jewish-Israeli scholars critical of the regime, at Israeli universities hardly enjoy the academic freedom invoked by critics of the boycott.

In the debate on the boycott of Israel and the pro-Palestinian movement, legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism has often been conflated with antisemitism. This carries the risk of establishing an incorrect and potentially dangerous interpretation of what antisemitism is. At the same time, discussions of the Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism present in public debate have been notably absent - a silence that risks reinforcing these forms of racism in Swedish society.

GUPAS is actively engaged in a project aimed at supporting the reconstruction of higher education in Gaza, as well as strengthening collaborations with other Palestinian universities that are increasingly subject to restrictions. This includes offering universities in Gaza the possibility of receiving support from teachers at the University of Gothenburg across a range of subjects and educational fields, through lectures, supervision, seminars, or other activities conducted digitally. It has also resulted in concrete collaborations in seminar activities, the development of research initiatives, and the planning of partnerships with universities in the West Bank as well as in the Gaza Strip.