Since October 7th, another cycle in the on-going war between Israel and the Palestinians began. It started with unprecedented mass killings as well as kidnapping of military and civilian population in the South of Israel by Hamas and continued with a mass killings and destruction of Gaza and its population by the Israeli military, in their attempts to wipe out Hamas. The conflict is slowly spreading to include involvement by various pro-Iranian organizations across the ME from Lebanon to Yemen and American, as well as other western militaries including the UK.

Within Israel, the war is being used to intensify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank by settler militias and the persecution of both Palestinian citizens of Israel and leftist and human rights activists who speak against what is being done to the Palestinians is all the time intensifying, in and out of the academy.

Outside Israel, including in the UK, we see an intensification of the criminalisation of support for   Palestinians and the zero-sum logic of the so called ‘new antisemitism’ which views any support of the Palestinians as antisemitic, or – to use Suella Braverman’ description of the pro-Palestinian and anti-war marches in London, a ‘hate march’ which needs to be criminalised. There have also been  increasing attacks on academic freedom, both within universities and in UKRI )(UK Research and Innovation), a public body that funds research.

The webinar will reflect on these developments and discuss what our responses should be.

Speakers:

Nira Yuval-Davis is a diasporic Israeli Jew, Professor Emeritus, Honorary Director of the Research Centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB) at the University of East London. She is a former President of the Research Committee 05 (on Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnic Relations) of the International Sociological Association, founder member of Women Against Fundamentalism and of SSAHE (Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment). Among her books are Woman-Nation-State, 1989, Racialized Boundaries, 1992, Unsettling Settler Societies, 1995, Gender and Nation,1997, The Warning Signs of Fundamentalism, 2004, The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations, 2011, Women Against Fundamentalism, 2014 and Bordering, 2019. Her forthcoming article in Sociology is on ‘Antisemitism is a form of racism – or is it?’

Bethany Shiner is senior lecturer in law at Middlesex University London and is completing her PhD at the University of Oxford on the right to freedom of thought. Prior to academia she was a judicial review lawyer acting for legally aided claimants in proceedings against the British government.  She has published on the right to freedom of thought, military accountability and the regulation of digital political adverts.

Basma El Doukhi is Palestinian human rights activist, Global Challenges Doctoral Scholar in Migration studies and an associate lecturer at the University of Kent. Basma has a master’s degree in the Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University .She has been active in humanitarian and development work with displaced people the past fourteen years covering diverse scope of sectors like community outreach and mobilization, advocacy, durable solutions, protection and many others with UNHCR, UNRWA and many international NGOs in MENA and the UK.  She is dedicated and passionate about refugee protection, humanitarian action, advocacy, campaigning, and community outreach and development.

Chairs: Prof. Molly Andrews and Prof. Shirin Rai