Dear All,
Kayhan Dewibas makes sense. One of the huge difficulties is that many/most
Palestinians regard themselves as part of the middle east and as not part of
Europe. That many Israelis do see themselves as 'European' - and thus
subscribe to ESA list - speaks of a narrative which combined both a self
proclaimed european colonialism and also a resurgence against the death
camps. . How ever bloody that past of the death camp past the future of
Israel lies in a just peace with Palestinians and recognition that she is
a middle east country.
So if Europe is to mean anything ( other than propping up a colonial past)
the alleged European-ness of Israel must be questioned - not least but not
only for the sake of Israel. Any euro fantasy which includes Israel and her
Arab neighbours some of whom ( like israel herself) don't make first base on
the human right s issue is only Ok in abstract rhetoric. I am hugely sad to
see JP Roos giving word space to such nonsense.
Making nice fantasies is no substitute for grasping the desperate struggle
by Palestinian academics to keep higher education alive. That any do
research which gets published international journals under such
circumstances is amazing. How does JP Roos's collaborative ideals match up
to the actuality where we have Birzeit academic s teaching their students
at the barriers created by the Israeli army.
Maybe it is time for ESA sociologists to pay their Palestinian colleagues a
formal visit, to check out directly what helps and what doesn't help.
Yours
Hilary Rose
on 11/2/03 12:24 PM, kdelibas at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I would like to comment on Michael Guggenheim’s proposal that is as he put:
>
> “Since Israel is considered to belong to "europe" and is allowed to
> participate in EU-funded programs, why not instead of boycotting
> Israel stop "boycotting" Israels neighbours? The idea would be to ask
> for participation of palestinian, egyptian, lebanese or turkish
> participation in these programs.” Sun, 26 Oct 2003
>
> It seems some of the members of this list like JP ROOS found it as a good,
> reasonable and fairer solution. But I have some doubts about the workability
> of this proposal.
>
> The first point is that Turkey as a candidate country for the full EU
> membership has been already taking part in the EU- funded programs from the
> January 2003 and will became a full participant from the beginning of 2004.
>
> Second point I would like to make is, as a Turkish academic who has also been
> following this process, I found the process of Turkish participation
> extremely slow. Turkey first signed the EEC-Turkish association agreement
> forty years ago in 1963, this agreement ratified Ankara Agreement in 1980.
> Then Turkish participation in the EU-funded programs allowed 23 years later,
> in 2003. The slowness of this process is rather discouraging.
>
> The third point is that, this kind of programs require years of preparations,
> organisation and negotiations. It means even the Israel’s Arab neighbours
> accepted to take part it will take years to come. Also every participant
> country has to contribute huge sums of money. I doubt any of these countries
> like Palestine can afford this financial burden. In other words the financial
> side is costly. As far as I remember Israel first joined EU-programs during
> the 4th Frame Program (FP4) but later had to withdrew because they were not
> ready organisationally and otherwise to full participate.
>
> Finally, if Guggenheim’s proposal works it would be a reasonable and fairer
> way forward: it wont punish Israeli colugos as well as will provide
> Palestinian, Egyptian or Lebanese academics greater opportunity to take part
> in EU-funden programs, however it seems to me this proposal wont be working
> for the reasons I expressed above. So we might need to consider some other
> alternatives.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Kayhan Delibas
>
>
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