Over 500 Professors Of Jewish Studies Oppose Israeli Annexation

Over 500 professors of Jewish Studies from around the world have signed a petition against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank. According to the petition, which was published in Hebrew, English and Arabic, “The continuation of the occupation and the stated intention of the current government to annex parts of the West Bank, thereby would formally (de jure) create. apartheid conditions in Israel and Palestine.”

It continues: “We reject annexation and apartheid, racism and hatred, occupation and discrimination. We commit ourselves to an open culture of learning, cooperation and criticism in relation to Israel and Palestine.”

Among those signing the petition are Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller of UCLA, prof. Samuel Moyne of Yale, Prof. Chana Kronfeld of the University of California, Berkeley, , Prof. Hasia Diner of NYU, and Prof. Susannah Heschel of Dartmouth.

The petition further states that the Israeli government “has made it clear that Palestinians in the West Bank who will be annexed to Israel will not receive citizenship, ..and the most likely outcomes will be for further unequal distribution of land and water resources on behalf of illegal Israeli settlements, more state violence and fragmented Palestinian enclaves under complete Israeli control. Under such circumstances, annexation will cement into place an anti-democratic system of separate and unequal law and systemic discrimination against the Palestinian population, which will amount to conditions of apartheid.”

According to Mira Sucharov, a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, “Israel’s moves toward annexation signal a dangerous trend further towards apartheid. Palestinian rights and human rights are in jeopardy. Israeli democracy is being further eroded.” Prof. Nitzan Lebovic of Lehigh University, one of the academics who organized the petition, says, “Annexation is a continuation of long-term processes, yet it is a very dangerous turning point. We were amazed by the immediate response of many of the signatories. There were no arguments about the word ‘apartheid.’ This was a response to Israel’s right-wing movement over the last years.”

At the same time, reports Israel’s 972 Magazine (June 16, 2020), 240 legal scholars from around the world, including Israel, signed a separate petition against annexation , saying it would constitute “a flagrant violation of bedrock rules of international law and would also pose a serious threat to international stability in a volatile region.”

Writing in The Forward (June 30, 2020), David Ellenson, Chancellor Emeritus of Hebrew Union College, declared, “I am deeply pained by the intention of Prime Minister Netanyahu to unilaterally annex extended portions of the West Bank that Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six Day War. I must join the chorus of voices opposing this impending move. ..The American Jewish community not only has the right but the mandate to critique our Israeli brothers and sisters when they are acting in a way that ensures that Israel cannot remain a Jewish and democratic state...All of us who fall in the Zionist camp have at this moment the responsibility to voice our opposition to annexation, not to ‘explain Israel to the wider world.’” **