Israeli human rights professor Neve Gordon: “Israel commits terrorist state attacks”
Neve Gordon denounces how academic institutions are “repressively trying to nip protests for Palestine in the bud”. On Wednesday evening, the Israeli professor of international law will give a lecture at the UvA. “It is much less safe to be a Muslim in the Netherlands than a Jew.”
Hiding in the basement was already intense, says Neve Gordon. But it only really became unnerving when he had children. The professor of international and humanitarian law, born and raised in Israel, was living with his wife and children not far from the Gaza border when his country shelled the Gaza Strip with rockets for three weeks between 2008 and 2009. That he was able to flee with his family into the air raid shelter then can still be called a privilege, Gordon knows. “The people in Gaza cannot do that. Not then and not now.”
This week he has come to the Netherlands from London - Gordon has worked at Queen Mary University since 2012 - for a string of lectures on how academic institutions are responding to the “genocidal violence” in Gaza. Wednesday evening it is Amsterdam and thus the UvA’s turn, in the Doelenzaal of the University Library. Folia spoke to him by phone the day before this lecture.
The title of your lecture at the UvA speaks of ‘genocidal violence’. The International Criminal Court would still need years to know for sure that there is ‘genocide’ in Gaza. You don’t.
“I see the dismantling of the health, education and teaching system in Gaza; I see the tens of thousands of people being killed; I see many more people being homeless. My interpretation, as a professor of humanitarian law, is that this violates both the human rights and genocide conventions. And I am not the only one who thinks so; most international scholars think so. It could take another five years for the ICC to hear all the evidence and reach a conclusion, because the wheels of justice are often very slow. But for academics working on international law, it is our responsibility to bring this to the fore in a timely manner.”
Neve Gordon is professor of international and humanitarian law at Queen Mary University in London. Before that, he worked at Ben-Gurion University in Beir Sheva. He has also written several books.
He is the author of: Israel's Occupation (University of California Press 2008) and co-author of The Human Right to Dominate (Oxford University Press, 2015), Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire (University of California Press, 2020). He has also chaired BRISMES's Committee on Academic Freedom and writes regularly for international newspapers.
Israel still says it wants to stop Hamas, the organisation that carried out a terrorist attack in southern Israel on 7 October, taking hostages. That’s almost a year ago, can we expect to see you on the barricades demonstrating against Hamas soon too?
“No,” says Gordon, with slight distaste in his voice. “For several reasons.” Before he begins his explanation, he caveats: “There is no doubt in my mind that Hamas carried out this attack”. “But,” he continues resolutely, “we are in a situation where Israel has hermetically sealed the borders of the Gaza Strip for decades. No one could get in or out. Palestinians were basically trapped, in the biggest cage in the world. Europeans must therefore recognise that Palestinians, like themselves, have the right to self-determination. In addition, we must remember that Israel gave money to Hamas for years. With the intention that questions, like yours, be asked. For Israel knows that Hamas is seen as a terrorist organisation in Europe. And that many Europeans, because of their Islamophobic attitudes, will support Israel - no matter what they do - if they say they are fighting Hamas, not the Palestinians.”
Gordon is referring to publications in reputable newspapers such as Reuters, which allegedly show that the Israeli government has transferred money to Hamas. With the intention of preventing the formation of a Palestinian state; the greater the power of Hamas, the smaller that of the Palestinian Authority, is the reasoning. The opposition in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) has also made these accusations, but Prime Minister Netanyahu and his own have always adamantly denied it.
“A cynical and manipulative move by Israel,” Gordon calls it, who is now on a roll. “We have to realise that, according to public surveys around 7 October, only 37 per cent of Palestinians supported Hamas. This already shows: that Hamas was able to become financially large was mainly because of support from the Israeli government. And don’t get me wrong, what Hamas did was horrible, but numbers matter too. Many more people have now been killed in Gaza.”
If the West knows or could know about this course of action by Israel, why don’t governments act accordingly, in your opinion?
“Because of history. European Jews were destroyed by the Nazis in concentration camps, and after the Holocaust there were still hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees. For the Europeans who had contributed to this, the solution was: let’s bring them to Palestine. In short, the Palestinians are paying the price for the crimes committed in Europe.”
Students who speak out against this want to be heard by the university. But according to UvA rector Peter-Paul Verbeek in Nieuwsuur, wearing masks in a conversation with the Executive Board does not make that any easier. Do you agree with him?
“What I see in other countries, such as the UK and the US, is that students’ names are given to the police or they are suspended from university. I don’t know if that happened in the Netherlands too, but I think some people were scared. I probably wouldn’t have done it myself. But anyway: students come to an interview with a mask on? So what? I don’t think this is a big problem, it distracts from what it should really be about: the genocide in Gaza.”
Is it letigimate for Palestinians to smash TVs and coffee machines in the Netherlands in the hope that you will then be heard by the university?
“In many of the demonstrations I have attended, around the world, there have been a few instances of anti-Semitism and breaking things. But out of thousands of events with thousands in attendance, it is these four, five, six cases that are constantly brought up. In any form of social resistance, we come across these kinds of cases. They should be criticised and condemned. But focusing on them is also a way of displacing the problem. Because the problem is, and remains: genocide.”
Can you call Israel ‘a terrorist state’, or say ‘Israel has to fall’, as we often hear at demonstrations for Palestine?
“If you look at Israel’s attacks on Lebanon these weeks, that’s a terrorist state attack, right? So if someone says that after such an attack, that is a correct characterisation.”
At the same time, because of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the National Anti-Semitism Coordinator sees an increase in insecurity among Jewish teachers and students. What do you think about that?
“I think people feel uncomfortable, but will often describe this as a sense of insecurity. It is much less safe to be a Muslim in the Netherlands than a Jew. I can say that categorically.”
And that Jewish or Israeli students, who disagree with the demonstrations, are often afraid to speak out, how do you look at that?
“If you look at MeToo, for example, where men have assaulted women, the people defending them should not feel comfortable. They should feel safe, but not comfortable. The same principle applies if you support a country guilty of genocide. You certainly shouldn’t feel comfortable then.”
Doesn’t that actually lead to the conversation not happening at all, i.e. those people not engaging in discussion? At your lecture on Wednesday evening, for example, the discussion panel contains only people who largely agree with you. Wouldn't it be better if there had been critics among them?
“I am not the organiser of this lecture. So you would have to ask the organiser.”
But what would you find best yourself?
“I have no problem talking to people who have a different point of view. But if we have a panel on the climate crisis, would we want a climate denier on the panel? Or a Holocaust denier on a panel about the Holocaust? I don't think so.”
Those are extremes. But maybe someone who would be more critical of far-reaching climate measures, for example? Or someone critical of Israel but not unconditionally condemning genocide in Gaza, like the ICC?
“I think we have to agree on the problem. On how we want to tackle that problem, we may disagree on that. I don't think the university should invite someone who believes in Biblical creationism when we are talking about evolution and biology. And many of the students see that crimes against humanity are being committed in Gaza. So I don’t see the problem...”
Finally then, you mentioned at the beginning of this interview that you lived close to Gaza. Did you lose any friends or acquaintances in the Hamas attack on 7 October?
“Yes, a graduate student of mine and three friends. That is horrible, but violence from Israel is not going to get us out of this situation.”
