The Shministim, noncooperation and the bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza
Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from Jimmy Johnson, the International Coordinator for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. For more about the recent Shministim letter, visit their Facebook page.
This morning the Israeli Air Force bombed the Islamic University of Gaza. Why? What threat do schools of a stateless people lacking even a single tank pose to the army of a nuclear power? Quite a big one as it turns out. Students in all parts of the world are in the space between parental control and absorption into the reigning power system. This space is can lead to recklessness, but it’s also what makes students so dangerous to the powers that be. “What if they won’t inherit our practices, our crimes?” This is the threat of high-schoolers and university students. Many might not be old enough to vote, others simply don’t have that right, but they can threaten unjust systems by refusing to participate in them; delegitimizing them by refusing cooperate and creating their own. Students organized against the Czar Nicholas I in Lithuania leading to the university being closed in 1832. They revolted in Mexico City, Paris, Karachi, New York and others places in 1968. South Korea’s students in 1987 forced the government to make constitutional changes and free political prisoners. There are several examples from around the Mediterranean in just the last month. Students in Cairo won the right to have campuses free of Egyptian security personnel through demonstrations and legal challenges. Barcelona two weeks ago saw coordinated actions aimed at preventing a university reorganization that could threaten the arts and humanities departments and the youth and students largely organize the ongoing actions in Greece as part of a reaction the killing of another student.
Palestinians students have used this freedom as much as their peers abroad. The student organizing during the first Intifada at Birzeit University was so effective that in an attempt to keep the Occupation, Israel closed it entirely for four years. Between 1979 and 1992, in fact, Birzeit was kept closed by the army 60% of the time. The breathing space and lack of dependable authorities to control students has made them a continual threat to the status quo of Occupation. The Islamic University of Gaza (I.U.G.) was founded in 1978 and saw a lot of growth throughout the 1980’s as Israel allowed the nascent Hamas movement to organize throughout the West Bank and Gaza in an attempt to weaken the Palestinians’ ties to the exiled secular leadership of the P.L.O.. But the lesson that students cannot be controlled, even if academic institutions can, was proved again with the grassroots movements that sprung up in Gaza during the first Intifada and that have continued since.
A group of young Israeli Jews called the Shministim (Seniors) too is rejecting a system they were born into. They’re refusing to be a part of the Occupation; refusing to play a role in the system of Israeli militarism their predecessors installed. The first shministim organized in 1982, largely against the invasion of Lebanon. Their letter was re-written five years ago by a new generation of Israeli youth who envision Israel as part of the Middle East, instead of Europe, and refuse to be enemies with Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and others. They’re imagining and building a future where Israel isn’t simply an American-sponsored European construct in the Middle East, but one with organic relationships forged with its neighbors. Why, after all, should Damascus, only 230 kilometers from Jerusalem, be “further” than Paris (3350km away)? And for this they are ostracized, imprisoned and denied the benefits and opportunities, social and economic, which come with serving in the military and serving the Occupation. They are a threat to the militarism and nationalism that help keep the Occupation going.
The students at the I.U.G. are a bigger threat to the Israeli siege of Gaza than the Qassam rockets that have peppered the nearby areas for some time. So it’s no surprise to find that the Air Force destroyed the I.U.G.. In doing so Israel made clear its desire for the status quo, one of perpetual Occupation and, arguably, Hamas rule in Gaza. Without the breathing room at the university it’s almost impossible for the younger generation to envision their own future as different than their predecessors’; with only Occupation, Fatah & Hamas to draw from. It’s up to all of us to ensure that Palestinian students have the right to study, meet and determine their own future out from under Israeli Occupation. It’s especially the responsibility of student movements throughout the world to stand and organize in solidarity with their peers at I.U.G. who are being bombed and killed and with the Shministim high-schoolers who are being imprisoned and ostracized. The power of student and youth movements has been seen time and time again, and they can lead the way in ending the attacks on Gaza, the Occupation and bringing about justice in Israel, Palestine, Greece, all around the Mediterranean and throughout the world. Refusing to cooperate with the unjust systems of today gives us the opportunity for a better tomorrow.
This university is–to be clear — Hamas controlled. True or not?
This morning the Israeli Air Force bombed the Islamic University of Gaza. Why?
Good question. They bombed the science center.
What were students learning to make in their courses and labs? Was it like other science centers in the west, or was it different somehow?
DK-
do you have evidence to support the notion that the labs at the Islamic University of Gaza were used for something “different” then other labs “in the west”.
btw, those labs make, you know weapons systems and poisonous chemicals and all sorts of wonderful things… the same used in bombs to kill people in other countries… US science labs make weapons too. even at universities.
I do now.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456522761&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
You didn’t wait to see why. The Tweens of the world were marching towards a better and brighter tomorrow, and Israel was stopping them. You knew. Israel was just stopping those who wanted to Rock the Vote!
Now eat crow. All of you on the “masthead”. Time to eat crow. Eat.
DK-
can you be civil for once? I wasn’t attacking you or insulting you, I was asking for some evidence. I didn’t know what to think, it’s completely believable that Hamas uses their universities for weapons, our universities make weapons too. The Universities of Wisconsin-Madison and UMass-Amherst, even UC Berkeley, did R&D for us during Vietnam, I’m sure they still do.
What does eat crow even mean?
I went to UW – Madison, and I am pretty sure that there were never any enemy captives held prisoner there, and the only known terrorist I knew was the guy who helped plant a bomb during the vietnam era who served his 20 years and was busy selling vegetables.
But it seems like this ‘University’ was a little different….
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3361595,00.html
Several points to bring up about the responses from one “DK”.
1. Assuming what you wrote about the IUG being & R&D facility for Hamas is true (which I’ll get to in a second), then you are also saying that MIT, UC-Berkley, UC-Davis, U of Michigan and hundreds of other schools are at least partially legitimate targets for Iraqi and Afghani fighters as they are R&D labs for the Pentagon.
2. The IUG was around before Hamas, and assuming what was destroyed is rebuilt, will be around after Hamas. It is controlled by Hamas in the same way Notre Dame and Boston College, both Catholic Universities, are “controlled” by the Pope. One of the articles linked quotes Fatah officials about the IUG, Fatah who were engaged in sectarian war with Hamas at that very moment and who were attempting to stage a coup at the time. The university was raided because universities are a danger to the Palestinian powers-that-be as well.
3. Palestinians have produced exactly one currently-in-use homegrown weapon, the Qassam rocket. The R&D labs at IUG were incapable of producing weapons, at least anything stronger than the Qassam (which is made in metal shops in several places in Gaza). It’s not a question of technical expertise, but of manufacturing capacity. There are no doubt Gazans who have studied at a pilot school somewhere and are capable of flying an attack helicopter, at least at a rudimentary level. And there are engineers with the technical capability of doing so. But there is no manufacturing or productive base for them to plug into. It’s the same in developing nations all over the world, the educational system is far, far ahead of the economic one. Even the Qassam is, according to the Ministry of Defense, “more a psychological than physical threat.”
4. What all the papers, but for the Jerusalem Post (like quoting the NY Post on the Iraq War…), are pointing to is the university being a symbol of Hamas in Gaza. It’s the same reason five ministerial buildings were demolished and the same reason Ismail Haniyeh’s neighbor’s house was destroyed.
Jimmy,
Many other newspapers are noting that it was the science buildings which were targeted, something you saw no need to specify, and are describing the relationship between Hamas and the university quite differently than the relationship between the pope and American Catholic universities.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7802515.stm
DK,
It wasn’t just the science buildings, but even if it had been, my point is valid about it being a “legitimate” target only of all the aerospace and ordnance labs at U.S. and Israeli universities are (along with the fact that, because there is no infrastructure, nothing can really be produced!). The heads of the current bombing of Gaza studied at Hebrew U, Tel Aviv U and Technion. Bombing those venues would be collective punishment even though their graduates are practicing theory and techniques learned at those institutions in the production, allocation and consumption of various Israeli armaments, as well as organizing and planning military missions. In its article the BBC tries to invent relevance from coincidence. Hamas has always been stronger in Gaza than elsewhere and it can’t possibly be a surprise than many Gazan Hamas officials graduated from the largest local university. What is a surprise is that the BBC reads into this as though it’s something other than logical. It’s like looking at the Michigan legislature and reading something insidious into the fact that many studied in East Lansing or Ann Arbor. Furthermore I put the piece in the context of continual sieges by Israel on Palestinian universities. This isn’t a phenomenon limited to Gaza, this particular one was just the trigger for the article. It isn’t the first, the hope is that it will be the last.
I actually did my graduate work at Boston College, and I can assure you, that while a certain segment of the faculty and student body has a great reverence for the Pope, the institutions of the Vatican, and the Catholic faith, the campus is not controlled by the Pope. But my experiences are quite another story.
Again, the situation in Gaza is significantly different: Hamas enforces it’s political will through the threat of street-level violence. Any representative of political opposition has been assaulted, murdered, or had a compatriot assaulted and murdered, by Hamas. In that sense, so long as Hamas can project that sort of violence and fear against the Palestinians of the Gaza strip, Hamas controls the Islamic University of Gaza.
Now, since I do not receive intelligence briefings from IDF, I can only guess why the science labs at IUG would be considered a legitimate target. The most obvious, to me, would be chemistry labs where rocket propellant and explosives could be concocted in a relatively controlled environment (as opposed to someone’s basement.) We also have been reading about the increased range of the Qassam rockets– it’s entirely possible that that was worked out at IUG.
On the other hand, the literature department would probably not be a legitimate target.
We will only know when when there are investigations carried out and released to the public. Until then, all we are doing is engaging in speculation and accusations.
So yes, it seems to me that weapons manufacturing facilities, and weapons research facilities probably are legitimate targets during wartime under international law.
Ian,
You cannot separate the actions of Hamas from historical context. Missing from your post is the very fact of Occupation, and the very fact that Hamas’ “control” over the Gaza strip was an attempt to hold onto its democratically elected power when Fatah staged a coup. I do not apologize for Hamas’ behavior but you cannot separate it from the context, otherwise it looks worse than it is. Additionally you’re assuming that Hamas has the power to co-opt an independent university’s engineering department (or at least the science buildings) to make weapons without any dissent raised? Doesn’t that seem like a bit of a stretch to you?
Additionally you’re taking this single attack out of the context of multiple attacks and sieges on all Palestinian universities, a phenomenon going on for decades.
I think you are the one ignoring the context, Jimmy.
you’re assuming that Hamas has the power to co-opt an independent university’s engineering department (or at least the science buildings) to make weapons without any dissent raised? Doesn’t that seem like a bit of a stretch to you?
A university is not a independent institution when the society is controlled by a faction ready to use bullets and blades against any public expression of dissent. This sort of street-level violence continued long after Fatah was essentially crushed in Gaza.
My understanding of what has happened in many societies when a single political party is able to project political violence throughout society by means of its own paramilitary wing, means it’s not a stretch, because it’s happened before– and not just in the Middle East.
you cannot separate it from the context, otherwise it looks worse than it is.
I’m not really sure what looks worse than a regime that uses its civilian population as human shields whenever possible (simply because they know their enemy takes no joy in civilian deaths), and then uses machetes when those civilians object.
The only question is “Are there legitimate military targets on the IUG campus?” and the answer does appear to be “Yes.” Given what we know, and what we can reasonably infer, is it reasonable to declare the answer to be “no?” If there is, I haven’t seen the argument.
“Assuming what you wrote about the IUG being & R&D facility for Hamas is true (which I’ll get to in a second), then you are also saying that MIT, UC-Berkley, UC-Davis, U of Michigan and hundreds of other schools are at least partially legitimate targets for Iraqi and Afghani fighters as they are R&D labs for the Pentagon.”
Why wouldn’t they be legitimate targets for Iraqi and Afghani fighters?
The insane notion of proportionality in warfare should be discarded.
Technically, any weapons manufacturing facility would be a military target– and if there was a legitimate fear that the products of R&D could be deployed in the theatre of operations before the conflict is over, the R&D facilities would be legitimate targets as well.
The point is that if we’re going to talk the morality of war, we need to at least have some understanding of strategy, tactics, and actual international law.
“Additionally you’re assuming that Hamas has the power to co-opt an independent university’s engineering department (or at least the science buildings) to make weapons without any dissent raised? Doesn’t that seem like a bit of a stretch to you?”
Do the words “fascist, totalitarian state” mean anything at all to you? Do you not understand that under such a state, which describes the Hamas government to a T, independent thought, action, and study are not tolerated? Do you think Iraqi universities under Saddam Hussein had engineering departments that enjoyed the freedom to dissent? Do you think Saudi, Syrian or Egyptian universities have engineering departments that enjoy the freedom of independent thought? What planet are you living on?
Before spouting off nonsensical opinions, can you please learn the very basic facts of how totalitarian Islamic governments work.
Hamas’s control of Gaza is hardly totalitarian. You’re spouting an opinion based on a generalized fear of the enemy rather than facts on the ground.
Here is the evidence that Hamas uses schools, ambulances, children – you name it – to protect themselves at the cost of of the poor Palestinian.
Free Palestin – free them from Hamas terrorists!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J08GqXMr3YE