Dear colleagues,

Sometime ago I was invited to take part in a protest action to boycot the forthcoming IGU conference which is to take place in Tel-Aviv - Israel. Though I have symphaty for their idea about increasing the awareness on the issue, at that time I didn't think that was the way to increase the awareness of the scientific community about the issues Palastine is facing this way. I told them that, instead, they should urge the IGU organising committee to let them organise a session on the very issue. However, for Palastinian scientists it is impossible to attend in Tel-Aviv as Isreal forbids them to be there, forget about organising a session. I don't think people are even aware of that. In any case, I did not sign the protest letter as I think there should be a distance between sciences and politics.

I'm not going to go into the detail of what happened yesterday and how terrible it is that the Turkish and international help organisations' boats (also carrying international volunteers including a Dutch antropologist Anne de Jong, and activists and journalists from US, UK, Australia, Greece, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, the Swedish author Henning Mankell, two Australian journalists and three German MPs) were attacked in international waters ending up civilians getting killed and the rest put in prison. As BBC reports the activists are accused of using "knives, clubs and other weapons" to attack the soldiers who boarded the lead boat. Well, I don't know whether that is true, but it is clear that Israel will avoid any international investigation on the issue in order to put the blame on the activists. The boats were carrying 10.000 tonnes of humanitarian help! Even if there were weapons in those boats, wouldn't there have been a way to have the aid controlled before letting it in into Gaza? This is so outrageous that even people and the (censored) media in Israel are protesting this absolutely anti-democratic and inhumane move. As a scientist I feel we have to react. For this reason I don't see any reason why one should go to Israel to present a paper. As scientsists we have the repsonsibility to act against inhumanity.

I urge IGU organisation to protest this internationally. IGU should protest the Israeli government by demanding and ensuring that the Palestinian geographers community can present their case during the conference in Tel Aviv, or - if that will not be allowed - cancelling the conference and protest the Israeli government for their outrageous inhumane and anti-democratic actions.

Sorry for spoiling your mailbox with yet another e-mail on the issue and my sincere apologies in advance for responses to my email that you may have to read.