05.09.24
Editorial Note
Last week, the Palestinian feminist academic Prof. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian resigned from her position at the Hebrew University, where she served as Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Faculty of Law-Institute of Criminology and the School of Social Work and Public Welfare.
IAM reported on her case that Shalhoub-Kevorkian said in a March 9, 2024 podcast, “yes it’s time to abolish Zionism, this is where I’m going today, just abolish Zionism. Well, it can’t continue, it cannot, it’s criminal, it’s criminal. Only by abolishing Zionism, we can continue, this is what I see… they [the Israelis] will use everything to further kill, it’s a killing machine and it’s a necro, political regime that can survive only on the erasure of Palestinians… the body of the Palestinian, the living body, the dead body, the cut to pieces body, are all capital in the hands of this Zionist entity and of course, they will use any lie, they started with babies, they continued with rape, they will continue with million other lies, every day with another story, we stopped believing them. I hope that the world will stop believing them.”
Arab media also reported the case. The largest Arab media company, headquartered in London, named The New Arab and its affiliate site Arab 48, which belongs to the Qatari-owned Fadaat Media, stated that in the Podcast, Shalhoub-Kevorkian detailed her experience of “working and living under the Israeli occupation” and “spoke about the genocide in Gaza.” Consequently, she was suspended from teaching by the end of the semester in March and then briefly arrested in April for charges of “incitement for her vocal anti-war and anti-Zionist stance.”
In an interview, Alaa Mahajna, Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s defense lawyer, said, “Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian made the decision early on… that it was impossible for her to work at a university defining itself as Zionist, but which at the same time talked about freedom of expression and education.” Her lawyer also said that Shalhoub-Kevorkian received compensation from the university for “its behavior towards her.” Her decision to resign was due to “conditions which have been created in the Israeli universities, which consider themselves to be Zionist, and criminalize those opposed this.”
Her latest article, “How Should We Read This War?” was published in May in the newsletter The New York War Crimes’ Nakba Day Edition, published by The New York Crimes Company, bearing the slogan, “Revolution and Resistance Until Liberation and Return.” Shalhoub-Kevorkian wrote: “We witness actual, overt academic oppression as they willfully ignore professional academic behavioral standards and freedom of expression in broad daylight. We see the USA, Germany, France, Britain and other western nations interfering in their universities, denying the right of freedom of expression to all except for those in power. All this calls into question the universality of academic freedom as well as the discourse of equality and justice. Zionism, moreover, benefits from anti-Zionism which it equates with anti-Semitism in order to silence ‘moderates’ and in doing so, erects an ideological barrier against any consideration of the Palestinian cause, in order to prevent thinking of a way out of the crisis beyond an exclusionary and substitutional logic toward the Other. The farcical show put on by the US Congress criticizing university presidents, resulting in the resignation more than one of them, has created a punitive system that works on behalf of the occupier. The ‘policies’ that have labeled symbols such as the keffiyeh — or the Arabic — language as provocative have allowed events such as the shooting of Palestinian youths in Vermont, resulting in one of them being paralyzed. All this state terrorism, this thought terrorism — the real, ongoing threats that we thinkers and researchers face today — result in greater determination on our part to refuse white racist violence, to hold fast to our human principles, to refuse genocide. The questions do not end here: there are struggles over truth, over numbers, over the validity of data, over scientific accuracy, over dates by voices that knowledge ultimately determined by the occupying forces.”
After hearing that Shalhoub-Kevorkian has resigned, a group of academics from the Hebrew University wrote in protest a public letter on August 29, 2024, to Prof. Asher Cohen, President of the Hebrew University, and Prof. Tamir Shafer, Rector of the Hebrew University. They stated, “We, members of the academic staff and administrators at the Hebrew University, learned with great sadness from the media about the retirement of our colleague Prof. Nadra Shalhoub Kevorkian from the Hebrew University, ending decades of studies, teaching and research. Her resignation followed a nearly year-long negative campaign, which included public letters from the university management and colleagues who sought to denounce and ostracize her, publications in the media, and even a continuous and humiliating police investigation (including an all-night arrest). Regardless of our positions in this particular case, we see her retirement and the moves that led to this move as a fatal blow to the Hebrew University and its academic freedom. Along the way, starting from the beginning of the affair in October, the university administration sided with the accusers of Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian and, in an unusual move, suspended her from teaching at the end of the first semester.”
According to the letter, “All this, without examining her words in depth and while making statements to the media that harmed her, her good name and her personal safety. The media took sentences out of context, distorted her words and attributed things to her that she did not say, and the university’s statements condemned her in blatant violation of the accepted rules of criticism within free academic research. In an academic setting such as ours, it is possible to deal with different positions, some of which are critical and shocking and not necessarily pleasant to the ear, to express disagreement if necessary but still maintain every guard for freedom of expression and academic freedom. Instead of listening to the words of Prof. Shalhoub-Kevorkian and dealing with her claims to the letter, the management chose to deal with half-truths and sweeping generalizations. When she was invited to a police investigation based on her academic articles (absurd in itself), the university publicly disowned her and not a single representative of the university stood by her side during any of the humiliating police investigations she was required to attend. Even now, the news of Prof. Shalhoub Kevorkian’s retirement is being celebrated in the media, with the addition of lies and half-truths and in violation of her privacy. “
The letter ended: “We hereby express our deep disappointment with the university administration, and our fear for our safety and the safety of our colleagues and students in the difficult days ahead of us. The painful end of this affair is a silent and paralyzing message for all university researchers, not least for Palestinian researchers. As written in the letter of the faculty members to the management in April, this year it was Nadera that was put on the dock without a defender, and tomorrow it will be each and every one of us.”
The undersigned are Prof. Amos Goldberg, Prof. Abigail Jacobson, Prof. Shlomi Segal, Prof. Liat Kuzma, and Dr. Einat Rubinstein.
Worth noting that Prof. Amos Goldberg, who signed this letter, has abused his scholarship in Holocaust Studies by equating the tragedy of the Jews in the Holocaust to the self-inflicted Palestinian Nakba. That the murder of six million Jews is comparable to the Nakba reflects the dominance of the post-modern neo-Marxist, critical scholarship in the social sciences. As IAM repeatedly noted, this approach does not require empirical evidence to prove a theory. Hence, Goldberg recently claimed that Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian abused her scholarship; she has become an anti-Israel activist whose academic writings besmirched Israel without providing evidence-based proof.
Not surprisingly, Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s lawyer told the Arab media, “Professor Kevorkian has received many offers from well-known and prestigious educational institutions across the world, including Harvard University in the US, and many other academic institutions… and she will continue her career in one of the world’s prestigious institutions.”
As in the case of a number of Israeli scholars who made a career of bashing Israel, such as Ilan Pappe, Neve Gordon, Ariella Azoulay, and others, Shalhoub-Kevorkian receives a boost to her career with a position in a prestigious university abroad.
REFERENCES:
https://www.newarab.com/news/hebrew-university-academic-resigns-due-repressive-environment
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian: Hebrew University professor resigns due to ‘Zionism’s hold on Israeli universities’
Palestinian scholar Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian has left The Hebrew University of Jerusalem due to her rejection of Zionist ideology’s hold over Israeli academia.
Ameer Ali Bweerat
30 August, 2024
Renowned Palestinian feminist academic Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian has resigned from her post at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem saying this was due to her rejection of Zionism and its “control” of Israeli academia in the wake of Israel’s “genocidal” war on Gaza.
The news of Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s resignation circulated on Wednesday as far-right organisations – such as the self-styled human rights group Btsalmo (In His Image) – celebrated her departure from the major Israeli institution.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s decision comes following an intensive public campaign of intimidation against her after she signed a November petition calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Following her signing of the petition, which was also endorsed by over 1,000 researchers across the world, the Hebrew University asked her to “find another academic home”.
She was then suspended from teaching in March and briefly arrested in April for charges relating to “incitement” for her vocal anti-war and anti-Zionist stance.
Her defence lawyer Alaa Mahajna told The New Arab’s affiliate site Arab 48: “Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian made the decision early on […] that it was impossible for her to work at a university defining itself as Zionist, but which at the same time talked about freedom of expression and education”.
He explained that she had taken her decision before and informed the university she would not be continuing her employment there in the new academic year.
Israeli media and organisations such as Btsalmo put Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s resignation down to the pressure placed on her by figures and organisations who condemned her anti-Zionist positions and her description of Israel’s war on Gaza as “genocidal”.
However, Mahajna clarified that the scholar had in fact based her decision on what was happening more broadly in Israeli academia, namely, the hold of Zionist ideology over universities, as well as the political persecution of those deviating from this ideology, and the prohibition of free speech.
The campaign of harassment against Shalhoub-Kevorkian reached its peak on 12 March 2024 when the Hebrew University temporarily suspended her teaching duties due to her stance against the war on Gaza and other anti-Zionist positions she had expressed in a podcast aired on March 9.
In the podcast episode named “There is so much love in Palestine”, Shalhoub-Kevorkian detailed her own experiences of working and living under the Israeli occupation and spoke about the genocide in Gaza, the Israeli authorities’ withholding of bodies, and settler violence.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian was later arrested from her home in the Armenian quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem on 18 April 2024, and her home was ransacked by police.
However, she was released after appearing before the Jerusalem District Court despite the police’s appeal against the court decision.
The police claimed that Shalhoub-Kevorkian had engaged in “serious incitement against the State of Israel by making statements against Zionism and even claiming that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip,” and noted the “significant influence” her statements have.
Despite her release, she was subjected to several further interrogations at a police station in Jerusalem.
While her decision to resign was not recent, Mahajna explained that the news had been circulated publicly on Wednesday, after proceedings against Shalhoub-Kevorkian had continued in recent months.
“The right-wing organisation Btsalmo had filed a complaint to the university’s ethics committee against Professor Kevorkian in May, and we responded that they had no authority to submit a complaint against [her], and the university administration agreed”.
He added: “Btsalmo is a right-wing extremist organisation with a racist agenda against Arab citizens, which focuses its efforts and activity against Arab academics in Israeli educational institutions.
“The work of this fascist and racist organisation is to constantly persecute Arabs to satisfy the extremist Israeli right.”
Mahajna said that Shalhoub-Kevorkian had received compensation from the university for its behaviour towards her, and ultimately her decision was due to “conditions which have been created in the Israeli universities, which consider themselves to be Zionist, and criminalize those opposed this”.
Regarding her academic future, Mahajna said: “Professor Kevorkian has received many offers from well-known and prestigious educational institutions across the world, including Harvard University in the US, and many other academic institutions […] and she will continue her career in one of the world’s prestigious institutions.”
This is an edited translation with additional reporting. To read the original article click here.
This article was originally published by Arab48.
Translated by Rose Chacko
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https://newyorkwarcrimes.com/media/pages/print-issue-vol-ii-no-9/1f30c8fdb7-1715784569/nywc_no9.pdf
How Should We Read This War?
By NADERA SHALHOUB-KEVORKIAN
In this essay, the noted Palestinian feminist scholar and activist Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian asks how to “read this war” — that is, how to understand the present nakba and genocide. This is far from a purely theoretical venture for Shalhoub-Kevorkian, but one that is central to forging paths for resistance and solidarity in the face of Zionist destruction. In March 2024, Shalhoub-Kevorkian was suspended from her position at the Hebrew University. Despite being reinstated after international outcry, she was arrested by Israeli police the following month and subjected to torture in police detention before her release.
This essay was first published in Arabic in December 2023 and appears here for the first time in English translation.
The last question Ghassan Kana fani asks at the end of his book Men in the Sun is: Why didn’t you bang on the sides of the water tank? Those who do not dare bang on the sides of the water tank die, because banging and shouting imply a hope for life. So what, then, does Ghassan Kanafani’s cry mean? Do remaining silent and cowardly, seeking stability, meekly yielding to despotism, and surrendering to exploitation mean death between the burning walls of the tank? The ethical task is psychological,
“… even the rules of analysis have all failed us.”
political — all-encompassing. The economic task is a necro-political challenge to economies of life and death that face indigenous people today. These two sets of challenges face Palestinian researchers at every step. How can we not bang on the sides of the tank ever louder, especially when we witness and painfully live through the ongoing butchery of our compatriots in Gaza; when we face the loss of our loved-ones, our children, our men, our women, our students, our colleagues, our doctors, our journalists, our society, our future…
How can we go on breathing every day when we live through the horror of abandonment and are subjected to continuous crimes? How do we build up our refusal as we sink under the weight of our patriotic, our intellectual, our lived social-psychological concerns. How do we find answers for our steadfast generations and our future in the face of a policy of endless genocide?
How do we read this war, with all its horrors — particularly in view of the fact that our chronology starts with the colonial settler project and its boundless criminality? Do we read this war in the context of physical injuries, such as those described by Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, to understand that these injuries are a confirmation of the criminality of the massacres of the colonial settler project? Should we walk together from the Baptist Hospital [aka Al Ahli Arab Hospital –trans.] to the Shifa Hospital, to the pediatric hospitals that were subsequently bombarded, to the cancer hospital and the Health Services Centers, and consider the significance of their targeting? And then to the Khodaj Center where we see continued mutilation of Palestinian bodies, and from there to babies in the neonatal units deprived of oxygen, their bodies left to rot.
Doesn’t this way of reading events suggest that the bodies of our children — the sons and daughters of our people — their dismemberment, their uprooting, their pain and its treatment are the political capital that feeds this massacre and this project? Or should we read this war through the military-political action in its spectacular approach to criminality, and the endless American support of these crimes, as well as the British assistance in these endeavors with Britain’s declaration that it would assist in the war against our people by providing military intelligence and espionage?
Or through the militarized political support of America and its use of veto power — in addition to both its overt and covert means of support and its insistence on dehumanizing Palestinian men and women? Or should we read it by looking at Israel and its current state of shock — with its crimes of revenge, and its surveillance and legal pursuit of the daughters and sons of our people? Or by looking at the violence visited upon Palestinian political prisoners, at the use of our children and adolescents as a weapon against us, in addition the re-imprisonment of freed prisoners? By looking at the shedding of the mask of democracy and civilization? Should we look at Israel and observe its desire for revenge?
in spite of the solidarity of the actual Arab peoples? The loss of political will of the Arab regimes underscores the vital importance of the people taking the cause to the street in order to shake and weaken immoral “law and order,” both locally and internationally. Or should we read it through the Palestinian Resistance shouting against and resisting the mutilation of both the living and the dead, shouting its opposition to systematic ethnic cleansing, proudly displaying its involvement in self-defense, demanding the right to live and to do so in dignity? movements the world over, demanding an end to the massacre and calling for a ceasefire?
***
We must consider all these decisions we have to consider. We face great challenges, as even the rules of analysis — its terminology, its criteria, methods of interaction, thought processes, the public statements — have all failed us. As an example, the methods of speech and analysis of such prominent thinkers as Judith Butler, Žižek, Habermas and others have supported the criminals by failing to understand the present crimes in their colonial context. They have
***
Or should we read this war through the manifestation of the total unmasking of the colonial settler project throughout the entirety of our Palestine? Or through the abandonment of nations — Arab ones in particular — that have not only lost political will but who, to the contrary, have worked towards marginalization of the Palestinian cause through normalization with Israel, along with continued, systematic uprooting and massacres
Or should we read it through an analysis of worldwide solidarity, and the refusal of people across the world, as exhibited by demonstrations
analyzed the issues through preconceived notions, those of a white racist mindset, when discussing an occupied nation and comply with the imposed “codes of obedience.” I can also assert that they are profiting from the situation; they are watchful of the specter of our occupiers enmity, and fear the punishment and losses associated with any opposition to them. Laws, norms, universal principles of international law, criminology, the study of genocide, feminism, medical sciences as well as military codes of conduct have all evaporated when it comes to Palestine, and more specifically when it comes to Gaza. Ideological conceptions and practices have whittled away principles like the “right to self-defense,” the “innocence of defenseless citizens,” like “child protection policies” or the “enforcement of international laws and norms” — their application now limited to one party only. These laws and norms have, in fact, always sacrificed Palestinian lives and bodies. They ignore the justice of their cause and their right to resistance in favor of the lie of “values and norms” that bear no relationship to humanity or socio-political justice — thus unveiling the lies told about the morally deficient system of “human rights.” Because the Palestinian, in the lexicon of world politics and Zionist hegemony, is not only seen as nonhuman but as non-animal as well, non-deserving of compassion. Palestinian children are non-children, undeserving of protection, of saving, of medical care. The law has been used only in favor of those in power. There are those who deserve to be grieved and there are those who don’t deserve grief. The conversation about what is just, about morality, about “fairness” and “justice”, that preceded this televised massacre have yielded to the influence and the diktats of McCarthyite Zionism. The truth is revealed. We have seen, for instance, what they have done to universities in this country [Israel – trans.], starting with the militarization of academia and academic research, campaigns of violent arrests (which existed previously but under the pretext of legality, whereas now no such pretext is needed). We witness actual, overt academic oppression as they willfully ignore professional academic behavioral standards and freedom of expression in broad daylight. We see the USA, Germany, France, Britain and other western nations interfering in their universities, denying the right of freedom of expression to all except for those in power. All this calls into question the universality of academic freedom as well as the discourse of equality and justice. Zionism, moreover, benefits from anti-Zionism which it equates with anti-Semitism in order to silence “moderates” and in doing so, erects an ideological barrier against any consideration of the Palestinian cause, in order to prevent thinking of a way out of the crisis beyond an exclusionary and substitutional logic toward the Other. The farcical show put on by the US Congress criticizing university presidents, resulting in the resignation more than one of them, has created a punitive system that works on behalf of the occupier. The “policies” that have labeled symbols such as the keffiyeh — or the Arabic — language as provocative have allowed events such as the shooting of Palestinian youths in Vermont, resulting in one of them being paralyzed. All this state terrorism, this thought terrorism — the real, ongoing threats that we thinkers and researchers face today — result in greater determination on our part to refuse white racist violence, to hold fast to our human principles, to refuse genocide. The questions do not end here: there are struggles over truth, over numbers, over the validity of data, over scientific accuracy, over dates by voices that knowledge ultimately determined by the occupying forces. Here in our Palestine, the failures of our times are embodied
There is a loss of moral compass, starting with the colonial-settler project and genocide, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, racism, and continuing with what is termed “religious extremism” within and outside of the state, including the violence of Christian Zionism, where the concept of Amalek legitimizes our extermination via religious teachings and allegations. The continued massacres and even the so called “cohabitation” and peace, reconciliation, the rapprochement between the two people, pluralism and multiculturalism along with other forms of racist psychological warfare are playing with our minds and persons with the goal of depriving us of life and land, and are used for the type of silencing that legitimizes death and makes it inevitable, including death in “the tank.” Except that today we refuse not to bang on the tank. We decide to forcefully and solidly build liberation discourse and movements, and to end the deep-seated occupation. In 2023 truth stood naked in Gaza, and exposed the genocidal war, which included cutting off water and medicine, eviscerating human beings, trees, rocks. The genocide deployed psychological warfare, with its mercurial local and foreign dynamics, with racist and criminal standards, with its violation of the body, of life, leading up to death of Palestinians Genocidal methods, in Israel’s genocide on Gaza, are numerous. They include forced migration and extermination and deliberate targeting and stripping of men. Not that they can ever diminish the dignity of the Palestinian man, but precisely because they have failed to paralyze Palestinian society’s historical and current refusal of eradication. These methods prove their systematic ideological terror and underscore their intention to target our social fabric and societal bonds, to dehumanize our life force and our love, to deny childhood from our children, to target parenthood, to destroy the sanctum of the homes that bring us together and provide us with shelter, to level those homes, the schools, the universities, the hospitals, the playing fields, the cities, the mosques, the churches. They eradicate universal ethics (if there were ever any, because what is happening in Gaza has exposed the truth), to the point that state terrorism is now clearly revealed, visible and audible to all. Today we are left to wonder: when will the global appetite for genocide against the Palestinian who refuses to accept the laws of the jungle and rises up in resistance, refusing eradication, be sated? Resistance carries a price, and our history and our present bear the marks and the burden of a terrible pain.
***
But today we urgently need the following: First, Palestinians’ refusal of humiliation is our identity, our journey and our future. Our heads are held high, as we proclaim in our slogan, “Raise your voice high, death rather than humiliation, raise your voice, raise your voice, the one who cheers doesn’t die.” Second, Palestinian’s love of life is our path forward, a uniting factor that brings us together psychologically, morally, intellectually and politically. Because as Rafif Zeyada said, “We teach life” and as Mahmoud Darwish said, “We love life even if we have no access to it.” Third, to stress the importance of strengthening Palestinian awareness to the ways of the enemy’s propaganda. As Waleed Daqqa taught us, “we mustn’t forget that this is a war against the intellect”. Fourth, to analyze and to challenge, both intellectually and politically, the question as to how the world, with all its laws, standards and ethics, failed us and ignored our voices in the midst of the unseen massacres of Deir Yassin, El Tantoura, Lod, and others, up to Gaza today, even as the massacres are broadcast on television and other media. We need to resist the politics and discourses that enable and support these violent narratives. Fifth, to stress the importance of collaborative thought in order to build practical, analytical and liberatory policies today. I insist on the need for an abolitionist politics, which warrants profound and serious study such that we may offer liberatory political and intellectual analysis. The banging on the walls of the tank has become a matter of life and death in the midst of this carnage. Among the questions we pose ourselves now is: how is each of us to act in this moment? Where do we start and how do we proceed in our abolitionist and liberatory struggle in face of the Zionist genocide? Are there moral-political tenets we need to adopt together? How do we consistently stress today, together, that we refuse to accept militarized approaches and criminal judicial pursuits? Stop the massacres, stop the genocide! How do we struggle together, struggle along with unity and wisdom as we were taught by Kanafani. What is the role of each one of us in this struggle?
***
What should we do? What kind of movement do we initiate politically, intellectually, in terms of research, curriculum? How do we explain our narrative in the face of state terrorism and its supporters and those who work tirelessly to block the critical output of our intellectuals, thinkers and researchers, in the face of those who work in opposition to our resistance, whose condemnation of our efforts builds a barrier to understanding our political project? Our cause today, yes, our Palestinian cause, is the battleground that will define where our times are heading in terms of morals, in terms of work and life. We need to expose this history and today’s destructive political reality and we need to dismantle both of them. We need to dissect state violence in the Palestinian coroner’s morgue, we need to dissect those behaviors that were brought to attention by my dear colleague, the Gazan doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta, along with our activists, our children, our men, our women, our correspondents. We need to expose the authorities and the destructive powers of the state and its allies as so many of our activists and researchers, our pundits, our politicians have, and we need to bang on the walls of that tank… Yes, we need to bang on the walls of that tank not only to offer an alternative critical analysis of the facts, but in order to liberate our people and our Palestine, and to put an end to this genocide.
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———- Forwarded message ———
From: Abigail Jacobson<abigail.jacobson@mail.huji.ac.il>
Date: Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 3:11 PM
Subject: [HUJI PARTICIPATE]: מכתב להנהלה בעקבות פרישתה של פרופ’ נאדירה שלהוב קבורקיאן
To: <hujipar@listserver.huji.ac.il>
שלום רב,
אני מצרפת מכתב שכתבנו להנהלה בעקבות פרישתה של נאדירה שלהוב קבורקיאן אתמול. המכתב עוסק בהתנהלות האוניברסיטה בעניין, ומביע חשש לחופש הדיבור, החופש האקדמי ובטחוננו כולנו.
מוזמנות.ים לחתום.
בברכה,
אביגיל
—
Prof. Abigail Jacobson
Eliahu Eilath Chair in the History of the Muslim Peoples
Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Academic Director, MA Honors Program in the HumanitiesThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem
abigail.jacobson@mail.huji.ac.ilhttps://shamash.academia.edu
29 באוגוסט 2024
לכבוד:
פרופ’ אשר כהן, נשיא האוניברסיטה העברית
פרופ’ תמיר שפר, רקטור האוניברסיטה העברית
אנחנו, חברות וחברי סגל אקדמי ומנהלי באוניברסיטה העברית, למדנו בצער רב מהתקשורת על פרישתה של עמיתתנו פרופ׳ נאדרה שלהוב קבורקיאן מהאוניברסיטה העברית, בתום עשרות שנים של לימודים, הוראה ומחקר. פרישתה באה בעקבות מסע השחרה בן קרוב לשנה, שכלל מכתבים פומביים של הנהלת האוניברסיטה ושל קולגות שביקשו להוקיע ולנדות אותה, פרסומים בתקשורת ואף חקירה משטרתית מתמשכת ומשפילה (כולל מעצר למשך לילה שלם). ללא קשר לעמדותינו במקרה הפרטי הזה, אנחנו רואים בפרישתה ובמהלכים שהובילו למהלך זה מכה אנושה לאוניברסיטה העברית ולחופש האקדמי בה.
לאורך הדרך, החל מראשית הפרשה בחודש אוקטובר, התייצבה הנהלת האוניברסיטה לצד מאשימיה של פרופ’ שלהוב קבורקיאן ובצעד חריג השעתה אותה מהוראה בסוף הסמסטר הראשון. כל זאת מבלי לבחון את דבריה לעומקם ותוך יציאה בהצהרות לתקשורת שפגעו בה, בשמה הטוב ובבטחונה האישי. התקשורת הוציאה משפטים מהקשרם, עיוותה את דבריה וייחסה לה דברים שלא אמרה, והצהרות האוניברסיטה גינו אותה תוך הפרה בוטה של כללי הביקורת המקובלים במסגרת מחקר אקדמי חופשי. במסגרת אקדמית כשלנו ניתן להתמודד עם עמדות שונות, חלקן ביקורתיות ומטלטלות ולא בהכרח נעימות לאוזן, להביע חוסר הסכמה במידת הצורך אך עדיין לשמור מכל משמר על חופש ביטוי ועל חופש אקדמי. במקום להאזין לדבריה של פרופ’ שלהוב קבורקיאן ולהתמודד עם טענותיה לגופן, בחרה ההנהלה להתמודד עם חצאי אמיתות והכללות גורפות. כאשר היא הוזמנה לחקירה משטרתית על סמך מאמריה האקדמים (דבר אבסורדי לכשעצמו), האוניברסיטה התנערה ממנה בפומבי ואף נציג של האוניברסיטה לא התייצב לצידה במשך אף אחת מחקירות המשטרה המשפילות שאליהן נדרשה להתייצב. גם עתה, הידיעה על פרישתה של פרופ’ שלהוב קבורקיאן נחגגת בתקשורת, בתוספת שקרים וחצאי אמיתות ותוך פגיעה בפרטיותה.
אנחנו מבטאים בזאת את אכזבתנו העמוקה מהנהלת האוניברסיטה, ואת חששנו לבטחוננו ולבטחונם של עמיתינו ותלמידינו בימים הקשים שעוד צפויים לנו. הסיום הכואב של פרשה זו הוא מסר משתיק ומשתק עבור חוקרי וחוקרות האוניברסיטה כולם, לא כל שכן עבור חוקרות וחוקרים פלסטינים. כפי שנכתב במכתב חברי הסגל להנהלה באפריל, השנה זו היתה נאדרה שהועמדה ללא מגן על ספסל הנאשמים, ומחר זה יהיה כל אחד ואחת מאיתנו.
על החתום:
פרופ’ עמוס גולדברג
פרופ’ אביגיל יעקבסון
פרופ’ שלומי סגל
פרופ’ ליאת קוזמא
ד”ר עינת רובינשטיין
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