QISA Statement on BDS and Apartheid-Free Zones Movements GISA Endorsement
QISA Statement on BDS and Apartheid-Free Zones Movements GISA Endorsement
We, the members of the Queer International Student Organization (QISA) of the Graduate Institute (IHEID), stand in support of the GISA endorsement of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) and Apartheid-Free Zones movement in solidarity with Palestinian students and, notably, in solidarity with queer Palestinians who are especially subject to intersectional human rights violations.
“You cannot have queer liberation while apartheid, patriarchy, capitalism, and other oppressions exist. It’s important to target the connections of these oppressive forces” (Ghaith Hilal, AlQaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society). https://uscpr.org/queerstruggle
We stand in solidarity with the struggle of Palestinians, including queer Palestinians, living in the state of Israel and in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
We stand in solidarity with Tareq Abu Matar, a Palestinian student that was admitted into the Anthropology & Sociology master’s program at the Graduate Institute in 2019, but was arrested and tortured by Israeli authorities before he could start and is currently being held under administrative detention without charge or trial.
We challenge pinkwashing as a significant aspect of the Palestinian call for BDS.
We stand in solidarity with the AlQaws Palestinian queer organization speaking up for LGBTQ+ Palestinians.
We stand in solidarity with the Aswat Palestinian Feminist Queer movement.
We stand in solidarity with Pinkwatching Israel.
We stand in solidarity with Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (PQBDS).
We stand in solidarity with Queer Palestinian Empowerment Network (QPEN).
We stand in solidarity with Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT).
This is in accordance with Article VI of the GISA by-laws indicating GISA Support for Social Movements and Campaigns, Section 3.3, as well as a response to long-standing proposals and requests from Graduate Institute students.
We highlight the GISA statement as follows:
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“The GISA Board calls the student body to vote on whether the association:
1) endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement in solidarity with Palestinian students, which demands that Israel “[End] its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantle the wall,” “Recogni[zes] the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality,” and “Respect[s], protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194,” (BDS Movement) and;
2) join the multiple Swiss organizations in declaring ourselves as an Apartheid Free Zone, and create a space free of racism and any form of discrimination, including from Israeli apartheid
Palestinian students have been particularly targeted by the Israeli occupation, and especially, the Palestinian student movement and Palestinian student organizations. Only in the last year, 74 students were detained from Bir Zeit University alone. Palestinian students have been abducted by the Israeli occupation forces at their homes, their workplaces, and even in their university campuses for participating in student movements. This is a direct violation of Palestinian students’ right to education.
Detained students are routinely subjected to torture under interrogation, including stress positions and sleep deprivation. Further, Palestinian prisoners face a higher risk of contracting COVID-19, as dire conditions and overcrowding in Israeli detention centers make them a dangerous breeding ground for the virus.
As graduate students of social sciences in the heart of international Geneva, we cannot turn a blind eye to the plight of Palestinian students and of the Palestinian people more broadly. Besides the importance of putting in practice what we learn in class, it is important for us to acknowledge that we are the next generation of diplomats, policy-makers, and professionals, within the international multilateral system. From such a position of relative power and privilege, we have a doubtless moral responsibility towards those who experience different forms of oppression. Moreover, we have a direct responsibility of solidarity towards all our peers who are systematically prevented from joining the academic community both in its abstract and transnational conceptualization, and in the very local and familiar understanding of the Institute’s community. As coming to the Institute was a dream for many of us, so it was for Tarek Matar, who has been banned for traveling and sentenced to four years of prison, and tortured for his political activities as a university student just after being admitted to a Master’s in ANSO at the Institute a couple of years ago.
In this context, the Palestinian student movement and Palestinian student organizations have launched a solidarity campaign for imprisoned students. Together, they have called for:
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Boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the state of Israel, including Israeli academic institutions, which are fully complicit in the systematic deprivation of Palestinian rights.
Ending all military and economic aid, military transactions, joint projects and direct funding to the Israeli occupation regime by governments around the world.
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Challenging “normalization” programs that aim to legitimize Israeli occupation — this is an attempt to legitimize the criminalization and targeting of Palestinian students.
Organizing to build direct links of solidarity with Palestinian students and the Palestinian student movement, to ensure that they will not be isolated from their global community of support despite all attempts by the Israeli occupation.
The poll for the vote will be sent out directly after the General Assembly (which takes place Tuesday, April 27th at 18:15 on Zoom). The vote will be open for 24 hours.
Endorsing these two movements entails the crucial political dimension of denouncing Israeli systemic abuses towards the Palestinian people (human rights violations, illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, military campaigns deliberately targeting civilians and civilian facilities, etc.) further, it puts pressure on academic and diplomatic institutions to stop such abuses. Examples of how other student associations have followed up on their endorsement of the movements can be found on the websites of the campaigns.
Furthermore, specific requirements and constraints concerning follow-up activities by GISA for this type of social movement, defined in Article VI, Section 2.3.b of the By-laws, can be found under Section 4 of the same Article. The Vaccine Apartheid event hosted on the 14th of April is thought to provide adequate context to the two different movements that the student body is called to vote on (BDS and the Aparthide Free Zone); however, the organization of such event does not fall directly under Article VI of the By-laws, but it is part of the broader mission of the Association.
Resources on the movements
Check the articles published by The Graduate Press on the topic,
Website of the BDS movement, https://www.bds-info.ch/index.php/fr/fr_bds-home
BDS Student Solidarity, BDS Movement, https://bdsmovement.net/student-solidarity
The FAQs of the website of the BDS movement address most doubts and misconceptions on the movement https://bdsmovement.net/faqs
Déclaration suisse «Apartheid Free Zone»,
https://www.apartheidfree.ch/fr/home-francais/#declaration
Time to boycott Israel? | Head to Head with Dr. Norman Finkelstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YFfQnwuVLo&ab_channel=AlJazeeraEnglish
A discussion was held by 1st-year students of the Master’s in Development Studies. You can watch the recording at
https://iheid.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/iheid/recording/66211dce88a91039b7
5f00505681eef5/playback (password: GmVb22xB)
Resources on the broader topic
Adaamer, Suspended Graduation: The Targeting and Political Detention of Palestinian University Students, 3 February 2020, https://www.addameer.org/publications/suspended-graduation-targeting-and-political -detention-palestinian-university-students
Adalah, The Discriminatory Laws Database,
https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771
Al-Haq, Special Focus: Amidst a Global Pandemic, IOF Continue to Attack Palestinian Hospitals, Disregarding the Legal Obligations of the Occupying Power, 17 January 2021, https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/17779.html
Al-Haq, Racism and Institutionalised Discrimination in the Roll-Out of the COVID-19 Vaccine, 18 January 2021, https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/17767.html
Al-Haq, PHROC Sends Joint Urgent Appeal to the United Nations Special Procedures on Israel’s Continued Demolitions Amidst a Global Pandemic, 25 January 2021, https://www.alhaq.org/palestinian-human-rights-organizations-council/17841.html
Al-Haq, Al-Haq Annual Field Report on Human Rights Violations in 2020, 2 March 2021, https://www.alhaq.org/monitoring-documentation/17950.html
Ashly Jaclynn, Palestinian Student Activists Face Detention and Torture, Jewish Currents, 10 February 2020, https://jewishcurrents.org/palestinian-student-activists-face-detention-and-torture/
B’tselem, A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid, https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files/publications/202101_this_is_apartheid_e ng.pdf
B’tselem, During the Coronavirus crisis, Israel confiscates tents designated for clinic in the Northern West Bank, 26 March 2020, https://www.btselem.org/press_release/20200326_israel_confiscates_clinic_tents_d uring_coronavirus_crisis
Democracy Now!, Vaccine Apartheid: Marc Lamont Hill, Mitchell Plitnick on Israel’s “Indifference to Palestinian Health”, 4 March 2021,
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/3/4/vaccine_rollout_palestinian_territories_israel
Human Rights Watch, Israel: Provide Vaccines to Occupied Palestinians, 17 January 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/17/israel-provide-vaccines-occupied-palestinians
Human Rights Watch, A Threshold Crossed. Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, 27 April 2021, https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Intelligence Squared, Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism, 26 July 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1VTt_THL4A&ab_channel=IntelligenceSquared
Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Israel: An Apartheid State?, 19 February 2021,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5CiSZWrXNs
Reporport Meron, Israel denies COVID vaccine to Palestinian student at Tel Aviv University, +972 Magazine, 3 March 2021, https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-student-covid-tau/
Samidoun, Solidarity with Tareq Matar, Palestinian youth organizer and scholar, victim of Israeli torture, 17 January 2020, https://samidoun.net/2020/01/solidarity-with-tareq-matar-palestinian-youth-organize r-and-scholar-victim-of-israeli-torture/
Samidoun, Tareq Matar, imprisoned youth leader and friend: A personal testimony, 12 April 2020, https://samidoun.net/2020/04/tareq-matar-imprisoned-youth-leader-and-friend-a-pe rsonal-testimony/
Samidoun, Palestinian Students Solidarity Campaign #FreePalestinianStudents, 25 February 2021, https://samidoun.net/2021/02/palestinian-students-solidarity-campaign-freepalestinia nstudents/”
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The struggles for Palestinian freedom cannot be distinguished from the struggle against homophobia. We encourage the student body to stand with us and vote YES.
In solidarity,
QISA