The Working Group on Palestine is formalised within the EUI Law Department, but has collaborated with all other EUI departments in the past. We are inter-departmental in scope, and are supported by all departments as well as the Decolonising Initiative and the MEDirection Programme.
The Working Group aims to raise awareness among the EUI community about the contemporary and historical situation in Palestine, platform for Palestinian voices and support the Palestinian people's call for BDS and the right to self-determination. Our Working Group was established informally following a conference in December May 2022 at the EUI.
This Interdisciplinary Workshop on Palestine brought together scholars from various states in Europe and Palestine in different stages.
It clarified the necessity to work towards the creation of a European Academic Network for Palestine. In November 2023, we followed up with a Roundtable on Israel-Palestine, the most well-attended Working Group Event at EUI, addressing the October 7th Attacks, after which we were formalised within the Law Department of the EUI. At this time, we collaborated with the EUI Researchers’ Union to draft a Statement Calling for Ceasefire.
In March 2024, we organised an event on the significance of the ongoing ICJ case of South Africa v. Israel, during which we launched a ‘Petition for an Inclusive & Anti-Apartheid EUI’, which received 200 signatures.
As a case of slow violence, of violence that cannot be understood on a temporal level as a crisis, as well as violence that exceeds the close temporality of wars, we did not have to wait for the October 7th Attacks to understand how crucial it is to discuss the case of Palestine-Israel, to examine it in comparative perspectives, and to make permanent room for it within the EUI. Hamas’s deadly attack on southern settlements in Israel and Israel’s deadliest attack on Gaza in response clarified how enormous and consequential the Israeli occupation of Palestine is for the world. The US’s direct military involvement in the Israeli attack on Gaza, as well as the EU’s unconditional support for Israel, demonstrations worldwide in favour of either Israel or Palestine and restrictions on freedom of speech in European states, all showed that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is not bound to the territories of historical Palestine or only to the question of Israel.
With that in mind, the objectives of the EUI Working Group on Palestine are:
- To offer a space for scholars working on Palestine and similar cases of slow violence to present their work within the EUI.
- To develop and establish a European Academic Network on Palestine.
- To raise awareness within the EUI community and beyond about the situation in Palestine and similar cases of ongoing violence that, aside from moments of significant escalation, are often marginalized.
- To promote solidarity with funding for and the protected academic freedom of speech granted to Palestinian scholars at risk and scholars working on Palestine more broadly.
- To lobby for EUI to become an Inclusive & Anti-Apartheid university.
We invite established scholars, early-career researchers, non-governmental organizations, and other activist groups to present their scholarly and non-scholarly work in collaboration with the EUI Working Group on Palestine. We also invite members of the EUI and the communities from which the EUI operates to approach us with initiatives about Palestine and similar cases that require our attention.
Links:
Petition for an Inclusive & Anti-Apartheid EUI
EUI Researchers’ Union Statement: Call for Ceasefire