Jenny Hardacre
Lecturer in English and English Language Teaching
Anglia Ruskin University
United Kingdom
14 March 2011
To Whom it May Concern
Open letter to the University of Johannesburg
I was shocked and saddened to learn of the relationship between the University of Johannesburg and Ben Gurion University.
In 2009 the South African Human Rights commission report 'Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?: A re-assessment of Israel's practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law' concluded that Israel's policies amount to apartheid.
Israeli Academic institutions are widely seen as either actively complicit in, or - at best - passively accepting, of the apartheid system in Israel and the OPT. Only a tiny proportion of students and academics in Israel are Palestinian although they make up 20% of the population of Israel.
Ben Gurion University has strong links to the military which enforces the occupation of Palestine and lists the IDF among its funding sources:
http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Units/osr/funding/funding_sources.htm.
http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Units/osr/funding/funding_sources.htm.
It is known to have disciplined academic staff for supporting the boycott movement and to have prevented students from mounting demonstrations critical of the Israeli regime. The university offers no courses in Arabic.
How can a South African University collaborate with an institution that is clearly complicit in the perpetuation of an apartheid system?
Please heed the call to cut the ties between the University of Johannesburg and Ben Gurion University.
Yours sincerely
Jenny Hardacre
Lecturer in English and English Language Teaching
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge
Secretary, Cambridge Palestine Solidarity Campaign