My name is Salvatore De Rosa, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Copenhagen. To be here is an honour, and I’d like to thank the organizers of this demonstration for inviting me to speak as a member of the staff of this university.
As we stand here today, more than 41.000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza, according to Euro-Med Monitor, two-thirds of them women and children. Many more are wounded and traumatized for life.
Israel says it will soon expand ground operations to the southern city of Rafah, where one and half million people have sought refuge. THEY MUST BE STOPPED. If this goes on, the destruction and the killing will be unprecedented in modern history.
Israel has already barred UNRWA from operating – the main U.N. agency that provides relief to displaced Palestinians – and other aid groups confirm that sending truck convoys to Gaza is now extremely dangerous.
This scientific and brutal genocide of Palestinian people by Israel relentlessly continues in front of the eyes of the world, in the biggest open-air prison on the planet. A genocide that is legitimized, justified, financed and materially supported by many Western countries, chief among them the United States.
But Europe has the hands full of blood too: be it through sending weapons, by parroting the rhetoric of self-defence of Israeli officials, by failing to exercise political pressure to stop the war, or by criminalizing protests by civil society calling for a ceasefire, the countries of United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Denmark, yes Denmark too, and many others, are all involved in and responsible for the massacre of Palestinian people and the destruction of their land by the Israeli army.
Surrounded by so many lies and so much deception, we must tell things as they are. We must tell the truth.
Israel kills journalists and makes their work impossible. It has outlawed Al Jazeera, after it has killed several of its journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 90 Palestinian journalists have been killed so far. Israel has barred international journalists from entering Gaza independently to cover the war. Israel doesn’t want the world to inquire into their genocidal campaign.
Israel targets hospitals and medical staff. Al-Shifa hospital was attacked already last November. And again recently. In the latest attack, the hospital was bombed, shelled and raided by Israel for two weeks.
Witness accounts tell us that Israeli soldiers have executed people point blank. Hundreds of bodies have been found scattered around the hospital, some with clear signs of bulldozers passing over them. At least 21 patients died during the raid, the WHO has said.
Israel has also detained many people from the area and we don’t know if these have been killed or are alive. Shifa hospital main buildings have been reduced to rubble, burned to pieces, bringing to almost zero the healthcare capacity within Gaza.
Israel kills foreigners and aid workers. Only three days ago, it stroked a missile on a convoy of humanitarian aid of the World Central Kitchen just after the group had brought in food to northern Gaza. Seven people were killed, aid workers from Australia, Poland, United Kingdom, U.S., and Palestine.
And this while tens of aid workers have been already killed. The UNRWA said in its latest report that 173 of its workers have been killed in Gaza.
Israel attacks other countries and embassies. Few days ago, an Israeli airstrike destroyed the Iran’s consulate in Syria, killing two Iranian generals and five officers. Other attacks by Israel have targeted Lebanon and Iraq, the risk of a regional war are higher than ever, and again the best the West can do is to give legitimacy to the terrorist operations of Israel.
Israel targets educational institutions, students and academic staff. And not just in the most recent war. The attacks on education in Palestine have been ongoing since 1948. Schools and universities in Palestine have been closed for long periods and Israeli forces have systematically deprived students and academics of their right to education, as well as their right to life, by deliberately targeting them and arresting, injuring or killing them. In the ongoing massacre, Israeli bombs have destroyed 70 % of universities and schools in Gaza.
The cultural genocide in the Gaza Strip and the systematic destruction of the education sector must be stopped immediately with all the available means to pressure for a ceasefire. Including boycotts.
It seems something IS moving.
We are seeing an immense upsurge of solidarity towards Palestinians.
We are seeing the people of the world rising in support for Palestine and in condemnation of Israel.
People are saying no, we won’t let all this to go on without doing nothing, we won’t let our countries support and justify it, we won’t let Israel pretend this is self-defence when it is indeed a genocide. A genocide that follows and is consistent with almost a century of occupation, displacement, violation of human rights, arbitrary killing and detention, land grab and planned underdevelopment. This is the latest stage of a long series of actions aimed at preventing the autonomy and self-determination of Palestinians, aimed at crushing and erasing Palestinian life.
We are seeing an immense upsurge of solidarity towards Palestinians.
We are seeing the people of the world rising in support for Palestine and in condemnation of Israel.
People are saying no, we won’t let all this to go on without doing nothing, we won’t let our countries support and justify it, we won’t let Israel pretend this is self-defence when it is indeed a genocide. A genocide that follows and is consistent with almost a century of occupation, displacement, violation of human rights, arbitrary killing and detention, land grab and planned underdevelopment. This is the latest stage of a long series of actions aimed at preventing the autonomy and self-determination of Palestinians, aimed at crushing and erasing Palestinian life.
Some universities are waking up. Four academic institutions in Norway have suspended collaborations with universities in Israel, a development supported by the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
Oslo Metropolitan University has severed connections with Haifa University and will end contracts with companies linked to Israel’s military.
The University of South Eastern Norway put a halt to its relationship with Haifa University and Hadassah Academic College in Jerusalem, saying in a statement: “We want to give a clear message that the warfare that the state of Israel is now carrying out in Gaza is unacceptable, and undermines the democratic foundation on which all universities must build.”
The University of Bergen has ceased collaborating with the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, as did the Bergen School of Architecture.
The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT) in Australia has announced the end of its contract with Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. A decision coming after a pressure campaign against the institute based on a call by the Palestinian Federation of University Professors and Employees Trade Unions (PFUUPE).
And more examples like this are multiplying around the world.
We must remember that Israeli universities are complicit in the crimes committed against the Palestinian people, as they play a fundamental role in developing Israel's military apparatus and security knowledge.
At Tel Aviv University was developed the Dahiya Doctrine, which is associated with the extreme use of force by the Israeli army against civilian population and infrastructure.
Technion University, in cooperation with Elbit, one of Israel's largest arms companies, implemented the apartheid wall and surveillance technology.
Ben-Gurion University houses the Institute for Internal Security, which develops Israeli military technology and cooperates with the army.
Ariel University was established in an illegal Israeli settlement, built on land belonging to Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, also built on Palestinian land, launched educational programs designed to facilitate the lives of soldiers of the Israeli occupation army and members of the Israeli intelligence service.
According to the BDS committee, terminating relations with Israeli universities “is what Palestinians, including universities and faculty unions, are calling for as the most effective means of solidarity.”
Technion University, in cooperation with Elbit, one of Israel's largest arms companies, implemented the apartheid wall and surveillance technology.
Ben-Gurion University houses the Institute for Internal Security, which develops Israeli military technology and cooperates with the army.
Ariel University was established in an illegal Israeli settlement, built on land belonging to Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, also built on Palestinian land, launched educational programs designed to facilitate the lives of soldiers of the Israeli occupation army and members of the Israeli intelligence service.
According to the BDS committee, terminating relations with Israeli universities “is what Palestinians, including universities and faculty unions, are calling for as the most effective means of solidarity.”
The academic boycott campaign has a clear aim: to prevent Israel from covering up its ongoing violations and crimes against Palestinians by exploiting art, culture, knowledge and sports. And specifically, by targeting complicit Israeli institutions, those which collaborate with the army and with the occupation.
Effective solidarity with Palestine's freedom and justice struggle is on the rise and will continue to grow until Israel will stop its war machine, inspired by the endless courage, dignity and strength of Palestinian people.
The "Genocide Case," which was opened by South Africa against Tel Aviv at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has issued a “genocide prevention ruling” that demands the immediate stop to Israel military operations. But instead of implementing this mandatory order Israel has doubled down on its crimes.
The Security Council of the United Nations passed on March 25 a resolution demanding ‘an immediate ceasefire’ during Ramadan, the release of hostages on both sides, and for ensuring humanitarian access to Gaza.
These events imply that all Nations signatories to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide should immediately impose a military embargo against Israel, as well as pursuing its international isolation.
Just las week, the UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese issued a report titled “Anatomy of a Genocide,” that not only outlines a textbook case of genocide, with clearly and widely expressed intent by Israeli leaders, it also describes how Israel has used the language and principles of International Humanitarian Law to conceal the act. A wall of lies that distorts international law to justify the unjustifiable.
Finally, I want to say one last thing.
Finally, I want to say one last thing.
The genocide carried out by Israel and the legitimacy that some governments, including in this country, are lending to it, is setting a precedent for a world in which there are no red lines, and no one is protected.
We should take notice.
With the climate and ecological crises going out of control because of the inaction and the lies of the same elites supporting the ongoing genocide, the instability and the challenges for working class, minorities and poor people everywhere are going to increase.
We need to remember that climate injustice and colonial genocides have the same roots and often the same actors behind them. Both are based on the same logic: the imposition of discriminatory hierarchies on a global scale that value some lives while abandoning others to death or actively killing them. To reverse this necropolitical logic, we need to get at the root of colonial mindsets and dismantle them.
Fighting for Palestinians lives means fighting for climate and social justice. It’s the same struggle, and we go forward together or we don’t go forward at all.
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I want to end with a call.
We demand an immediate ceasefire, the opening of border crossings, the delivery of aid to the people of Gaza, all necessary actions to lift the blockade.
We demand the end of the occupation, the right of return for displaced Palestinians, the end of settler colonialism in Palestine, the delivery of justice and reparations, the freedom of self-determination for Palestinians people.
We demand that UCPH recognizes the current conflict in Gaza as genocide.
We demand the end of the occupation, the right of return for displaced Palestinians, the end of settler colonialism in Palestine, the delivery of justice and reparations, the freedom of self-determination for Palestinians people.
We demand that UCPH recognizes the current conflict in Gaza as genocide.
We demand that UCPH exerts pressure to call for a ceasefire.
And we demand that UCPH withdraws all its investments from foreign companies that are on the UN’s blacklist of actors involved in violating Palestinian human rights on the West Bank.
Finally, we demand nothing less than total liberation for Palestinian people. This fight is a global fight, and we won’t stop until all of these aims are fulfilled.