On Belgian campuses too, the war against Gaza is leading to blockages. And questions. https://twitter.com/UnSynEtudiante/status/1787777737169436801/photo/1 Around a hundred students have occupied the Solbosch building on the campus of the Free University of Brussels (ULB) since Tuesday May 7. In addition to denouncing the “genocide in progress in Gaza», the demonstrators are demanding the cancellation of the visit of the historian and former Israeli ambassador to France, Elie Barnavi, for a conference. The former diplomat, also describing himself as “Israeli patriot” that thinker “pro-Palestinian”, yet calls for the creation of a Palestinian state. In a column published on Libé Thursday, he asserts that this is a “question of principle and historical justice”.
A position obscured by the occupants of the Belgian university. In a press release posted on X (formerly Twitter), the Student Union writes: “We demand the immediate cancellation of the visit of the former ambassador of the Israeli colonial entity.” Before continuing: “We cannot accept that a representative of a fascist, supremacist, apartheid state, of racism based on the dispossession of Palestinian lands and ethnic cleansing since its creation, comes to justify and defend the interests of the Israeli state, what’s more, in the middle of the genocide.”
The conference scheduled for June 3 is supposed to bring together Elie Barnavi, the president of Reporters Without Borders, Pierre Haski, the professor of international relations, Elena Aoun, and the historian Vincent Lemire. On its website, the university announces a “serene and constructive debate” around the situation in the Middle East. “Our university community has been, for six months, shocked, first by the terrible terrorist attack by Hamas and the hostage-taking of which the populations of southern Israel were victims, then by the frightening Israeli military reaction, cause of thousands of deaths, massive destruction of infrastructure in Gaza and displacement of populations with disastrous consequences”she recalls.
“Abysmal ignorance”
Guest on the show Evening Visitors on LN24, a Belgian news channel, the Israeli ambassador shared his surprise at this demand from the student movement. “What is extraordinary about these elite places […], this is the abysmal ignorance of these young people. Since they don’t want to hear what people like me have to say to them, they wallow in this kind of ignorance», he gets annoyed.
Describing himself as both a “Israeli patriot” and an essayist “always pro-Palestinian”he added: “I believe that the Palestinians have the same rights as me and have a state of their own. I fight for this, many of us in Israel do so. Attack me and the universities which are places of debate, […] it’s simply counterproductive.»
