NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Auckland University Students for Justice in Palestine
Media Release
August 1 2006
NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Auckland University Students for Justice in Palestine will hold a rally on Thursday the 3rd of August to launch its campaign to call on the University of Auckland to cut its student exchange program with Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology.
The campaign is in support of the over 170 Palestinian political parties, unions and other organization including the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions who issued a call in July 2005 for a global campaign of boycotts and divestment against the brutal policies of the Israeli occupation and the separation wall.
“Our campaign is designed to educate students and faculty about the human rights abuses and disregard of international law that the State of Israel is committing in south Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories,” said Students for Justice in Palestine spokesperson Omar Hamed.
“We are calling for a termination of the student exchange program as a way of applying moral and political pressure on the inhumane policies of Israel. The war crimes being committed by Israel in Lebanon and Palestine yesterday, today and tomorrow mean we can not sit idly by as innocent people are turned into corpses by the Israeli war machine.
“The fifty-six innocent people who were murdered in Qana yesterday and many thousands more innocent Palestinians and Lebanese would still be alive today if Israel abided by international law, United Nations resolutions and the Geneva Conventions. Israel has proved to the world that it is a rogue nation and a law unto itself. For this reason we must bring the full force of our moral condemnation against its barbaric actions.”
The rally will begin at 12:30pm and be held in the Auckland University Quad behind the Maidment Theatre on Alfred Street.
Omar Hamed is available for interview on 021 150 3597 or studentsforjusticeinpalestine@gmail.com
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Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Backgrounders on CUPE's decision to boycott the Israeli academy plus messages of support from Jewish and Israeli peace groups here:
http://www.ontario.cupe.ca/www/background_on_resolution_50
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
surely an exchange programme is actually a good thing - promoting dialogue and *learning* and all that?
ok, its a symbolic action, but it seems to me to be one of shutting off a conversation rather than beginning one
and its only really affecting civilians too....
Re: Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Yes more exchanges because it can be more than symbolic. Both sides will see the others as real people with the same problems and realize that their differences are largely an accident of birth.
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
You could have used all the above arguments against boycotting the academy in apartheid South Africa.
So while an exchange program may be a good thing (it may not be too) it is the pressure and symbolism effected by the boycott that is important.
On the other hand if one hundred and seventy Palestinian organisations support it as a non-violent way of helping end the occupation and we write it off-firstly we are saying that we know more than the palestinians about what solidarity with them is and secondly it means we cant blame those who turn to suicide bombing and all that while we refuse to do this non violent action because it promotes "dialogue".
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Technion is Israel's top technical university. Any student who goes there is plugged into research projects that are designed to further Israel's economic development on land stolen from the Palestinians. Its liberal naivity to think that this arrangement is conducive to 'dialogue and learning' anything important.
Technion is outside Haifa one of the main cities from which the Palestinians were evicted en masse. It is a main target of Hisbollah rockets. Imagine what sort of 'dialogue and learning' will be going on in the bunkers.
Haifa is also the Israeli end of the planned oil pipline that will bring oil from Baku to Israel for shipment to Asia independently of Russia and Iran.
I would think that the 'dialogue' that is going on right now in the Technion bunker is about how Israel can take control of Lebanon and force Syria to allow it to build the pipeline along the coast rather than underwater.
See Chossudovsky's "The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060...
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
bunker conversations might very kinda interesting actually, but as to what they consist of, neither you nor i are able to say.
perhaps its more focused on how to get they children asleep while rockets are flying overhead, or people freaking out because they are afraid of being called into the army , or someone they love has died.
re: the exchange, sure if it was developing military technology then i would advocate ending it (regardless of where it was )
or perhaps a great opportunity for sabotage to look at it another way :)
omar, i see your point about non-violent tactics.
but i also think some of the people here would benefit greatly from actually going to the places they think they know so much about
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Anybody care to describe what kind of an "exchange program" this is? Is it a real exchange program or just something like "if engineering students matriculated at Aukland U take a year off attending classes at the Technion then Aukland counts those credits" -- and does this sort of arrangement hold with other top of the line universities Aukland U students might be able to get into to take courses?
Do you have Technion students coming to Aukland U for some semesters?
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
You can read about the Exchange Program on the Universities website
http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/about/international/360/outboundstudents/e...
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Dave, I think you misunderstood my question. It wasn't about what the list of participating institutions.
Does anybody out there have the info? Yes I understand the list is presumably reciprocal. But does a reciprocal exchange ACTUALLY exist. If it's all one way traffic (in the case of the Technion) then ending the RECIPROCAL relationship may be irrelavnt unless you mean to talk about something very different IN ADDITION (accepting credits).
See, I suspect that in your case the traffic may well be one way and the reality that the Technion WOULD accept certain New Zealanders as "visiting students" even without a reciprocal arrangement whereby Israelis could be "visiting students" at Aukland U. After all, if the traffic IS all one way that "right" is pretty irrelevant. Are people here imagining that if you end the reciprocal arrangement that the Technion would retaliate and NOT allow "Zionists" from New Zealand to be visiting students?
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Mike I was just referring you to the website so you could investigate for yourself. If you do a search there looks to have been student exchanges and some joint research in maths. This will need to be investigated further.
However, SJP are talking about this Exchange Relationship as part of a wider boycott in support of a global boycott and disvestment. The questions you are asking are obviously part of the ongoing discussion that will arise out of this as to what are the priorities. Student exchanges may be low down compared with say joint research projects on laser technology.
IMO any official relationship with Technion that plays a leading role in many research projects that serve the Zionist state (just going from the Technion website) should be a matter of debate and student and staff vote.
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Return the stolen land to the Maori!!!
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
This is sick, discriminatory politics - stopping an exchange program to a well known, fantastic university. Should countries start banning exchange programs with New Zealand until they surrender their land to the Maori people? This is ignorant NZ politics at its best. Do the politicians even know the story of what is going on over there? I sincerely think they don't.
Re: NZ University must cut exchange program with Israel
Yes more exchanges is the right approach. Both sides need to see the other as real people with the same kinds of problems and feelings. Isralies and Palestinians should know their differences are largely an accident of birth.