24/10/2018
Statement on the McMahan Case:
AUB Students Against Normalization with the Zionist Entity
We, students of the American University of Beirut, stand firmly in support of the academic boycott of Israeli institutions and against all efforts to normalize the Zionist occupation of Palestine. We have repeatedly come together to support the academic boycott and to oppose normalization with any individual affiliated with any Israeli institution - and thus we stand again opposed to giving those academics a platform at our university, or elsewhere. We condemn AUB's invitation and full financial coverage of Jeff McMahan, who is an external advisor to the Department of Philosophy at the Hebrew University in occupied Jerusalem. McMahan was asked to speak at the Issam Fares Institute on Tuesday October 22nd in a lecture titled "Rethinking the Ethics of War."
As students of this university, we reserve the right to collectively gather and protest against situations which attempt to normalize relations with academics who work with Israeli institutions. We decided to disrupt an event that should never have been approved on our campus. Our disruption is a duty to all of us who understand and recognize the importance and urgency of the academic boycott, particularly here in Lebanon.
The academic boycott of Israel highlights the complicity of the Israeli universities as major, willing and persistent accomplices in Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid. Academic institutions in the Zionist state, like the Hebrew University, play a significant role in both producing the military tactics and technology that are used to oppress Palestinians, as well as in legitimizing the settler-colonial apartheid state. The academic boycott also gives attention to the oppression that Palestinian academics and students experience when they are denied the same access, resources, platforms, and opportunities as other academics -- restrictions imposed by the Israeli military occupation and Israeli apartheid throughout the historic land of Palestine. Palestinians regularly face discrimination, denial of movement and persecution for their speech, thoughts, and works.
The Hebrew University, with which McMahan is affiliated, is complicit in the dispossession of Palestinians and the legitimization, perpetuation, and expansion of the settler-colonial Zionist state. The Hebrew University, located between East and West Jerusalem, territorially occupies a space in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention, regularly offers extra credit for students who go on “settlement tours” with far-right groups, and legitimizes the Zionist state’s continued expansion and settlement building through forced displacement of Palestinians and land dispossession. In addition, in a direct tie with the Zionist army, the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus includes a military base on its campus.
After learning that McMahan is an external advisor to the Center for Moral and Political Philosophy department at the Hebrew University as well as reading his problematic publications and interviews regarding Palestine, students and student clubs emailed McMahan requesting that he withdraw from giving the talk. As students, we promptly highlighted that his presence at AUB would be a direct violation of the international academic boycott of Israel. McMahan informed us that he would not withdraw since AUB had invited and paid for him to come. He attempted to justify his position on the academic boycott by stating: “I disagree with you about tactics for achieving justice for Palestinians. A boycott of Israeli academics is a form of collective punishment and as such is itself unjust.”
The academic boycott is not “collective punishment,” as it does not target individuals and instead targets institutions complicit in the oppression of Palestinians. Collective punishment, grounded in the philosophy of Apartheid, on the other hand, is denying Palestinians the right to return and demonizing tactics to achieve justice. Collective punishment is denying Palestinians their right to movement and to access resources. Collective punishment is the mass expulsion and the demolition of Palestinian homes. Academic boycott, thus, is rather a strategy to highlight the role of Israeli academic institutions, since they are not innocent; and to push professors to put pressure from within. To label it as ‘collective punishment,’ demonstrates an ignorance of both the term and of boycott itself.
Not only is McMahan affiliated with an institution that is complicit in war crimes, but, on a secondary level, his own criticism of Israel extends to little more than a critique of settlement expansions and various “unjust policies.” He describes Israel’s use of disproportionate force as isolated instances of violence rather than a systemic norm. He limits his criticism to the Zionist Entity’s “unjust policies” and thus ignores its foundation and power as a settler colonial state, and implies that the oppressed and the oppressor -- Palestine and the Zionist entity - are 'equals'.
For these reasons and more, we recognize that inviting any speaker affiliated with the Hebrew University, or any Israeli university, to give a talk in Lebanon is a violation of the academic boycott and is an affront to our cause in Palestine.
We call upon AUB, our campus community, and all Lebanese society to support the academic boycott and honor its commitment to the Palestinian and Lebanese student body and staff on this campus who are no strangers to the occupying entity’s brutality. We must be committed to a movement that is truly anti-colonial and liberationist, not one that legitimates the normalization of Zionist institutions and the work that they produce. We call upon AUB to act “boldly” and prevent such events from happening again by officially supporting the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
In the coming weeks, we will be organizing mechanisms of accountability to ensure that the legitimization of Zionism and normalization with the Zionist entity no longer has a place on this campus. We call upon all supporters to help us in these efforts.
The liberation of Palestine is sure to come, and we will continue to struggle until ultimate liberation and return.
Palestinian Cultural Club
Cultural Club of the South
Red Oak Club
Youth Club
Lebanese Mission Club
Syrian Cultural Club
Communications Club
Philosophy Student Society
Civic Welfare Club
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
