In Gaza, there is no new semester
For two years, the people of Gaza have been killed, starved, and subjected to endless violence by the Israeli government. The Israeli government defends its actions by calling it “self-defense,” but such arguments have long since lost credibility. Under the pretext of ever-increasing “security needs,” Israel is killing women, children, men, medical personnel, teachers, journalists, and intellectuals. It is razing entire residential neighborhoods, bombing public buildings, schools, and critical infrastructure. The Israeli government is withholding water, food, medicine, and other basic life necessities. We hear constantly from the Israeli government’s politicians an extremist rhetoric about destruction, subjugation, and territorial expansion. An increasing number of experts and international organizations agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza since its war is an attempt to destroy all or part of the Palestinian people.1
While a new semester is beginning at Czech universities, higher education in Gaza has come to a complete standstill. Before the war, around 90,000 students studied at six large and six smaller universities, and around 5,000 academics worked there. Since then, all universities –all universities – have been destroyed by the Israeli army, as well as most schools at lower levels of education, libraries, and other institutions. Thousands of students and hundreds of teachers have been killed, and many others have been maimed and displaced by Israeli bombing. The destruction of the education system denies students in Gaza their basic human right and, in addition to the physical threat of violent death and starvation, the destruction also threatens the cultural continuity of the Palestinian people and the hope for future renewal of life in Gaza.
Czechia is complicit in Israel’s war on Gaza – the Czech government consistently supports and defends Israel’s actions. This is why Czech academics have a duty to stand up against this unacceptable violence. To live up to the universal values of humanity, solidarity, and humanistic principles for which our universities stand, we must use all available means to demand an immediate end to the war. We therefore call on all our colleagues to:
- Voice your dissent and condemn the killing and scholasticide in Gaza (you can, for example, do that by posting this statement at your workplace or other public places).
- Join the broader civil society in protesting Israeli policies in Gaza and its Czech support.
- Do not remain silent, do not shy away from the truth, and do not use euphemisms; act according to your conscience, not according to what is currently socially and politically acceptable opinion.
- Use your privilege to address and inform the non-academic public.
- Demand that your universities and other public institutions condemn violence and express solidarity with the victims.
- Do not cooperate with institutions that directly participate in oppression or violence, that profit from it, or are complicit in it.
Violence against civilians undermines the fundamental norms of humanity, human coexistence, and international law, and thus threatens us all. It is our responsibility to act. So together, let us stand up for an end to the violence!
- See the report by a UN’s special committee (https://www.un.org/unispal/document/un-special-committee-press-release-19nov24/), Amnesty International (https://www.amnesty.cz/gaza), Human Rights Watch (https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-extermination-acts-genocide-gaza) a B’tselem (https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide). Compare with experts’ views: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/29/israel-gaza-palestinians-genocide-scholars-letter or (https://www.ghscn.org/). ↩︎