Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 

Fax: +972-2-5664838

 

Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant

pniot@mod.gov.il

 

Brigadier General Hisham Ibrahim

Head of Civil Administration in the West Bank, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT)

Fax: +972-2-6599133

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu, Minister Gallant, General Ibrahim,

 

We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to condemn and demand an end to your ongoing military assaults against the Palestinians of Gaza. The human toll to date stands at more than 13,000 dead and more than 30,000 wounded.  Just as grave as the killing of civilians is the massive displacement of some 70% of the Gazan population and the wanton destruction of basic infrastructure. As educators, we focus our outrage here on the unspeakable number of students, teachers and staff killed or injured, as well as the massive destruction of Gaza’s educational infrastructure, from primary schools through university.   

 

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the prestigious International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2,800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and outside of North America.

 

Given the devastating death toll, with an estimated 40% of that number being children, there is no question that thousands of Palestinian youth of school age have been killed, and thousands more wounded:  the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that as of ten days ago, 11 November, at least  3,117 school students and 183 educational staff had been killed in Gaza and more than 4,613 students and 403 teachers had been injured.  In addition to this dreadful and still rising human toll, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MHESR), as of 6 November, more than 400 faculty have been killed and nine higher education buildings had been completely or partially damaged, among them the Islamic University of Gaza, Al-Azhar University, the North Gaza and Tubas branches of Al-Quds Open University, and buildings of An-Najah National University located at the Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie.  Education has been completely disrupted in 19 higher education institutions, affecting 88,000 students.  Indeed, as of 13 November, about 300 school buildings (61 per cent of all such buildings in Gaza) have sustained damage.  In addition, the war has prevented 555 students from Gaza from enrolling in scholarships abroad.  As a result of the ongoing death, displacement, and destruction, on 6 November the Palestinian Ministry of Education suspended the 2023-2024 school year for the 625,000 schoolchildren in the Gaza Strip.  As our Board’s 26 October statement warned, the cumulative effect of your attack on Gaza imperils “even the possibility of access to education for generations of Gazan children and students into the indefinite future.”

 

 As the occupying authority, your targeting of educational buildings in Gaza through bombing as well as other forms of damage or incursions constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, relating to the protection of civilians in time of war.  The resultant obstruction of education is also a clear violation of the right to education enshrined in Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 13 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The right to education is binding under all circumstances and to be protected in all situations, including crises and emergencies resulting from civil strife and war. Israel is a party to the UDHR and a signatory to the ICESCR and is therefore obligated to uphold them.  

 

We demand that you assume your responsibilities as occupying power and signatory to the above-cited conventions and cease these vicious attacks against the educational infrastructure of Gaza and the Gazans who teach, study and work there. We also join the millions of protestors around the world and call in the strongest possible terms for an immediate cease-fire.

 

We look forward to your response.

 

Sincerely,

 

Aslı Ü. Bâli 

MESA President

Professor, Yale Law School

 

Laurie Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California 

Minouche Shafik

President, Columbia University

officeofthepresident@columbia.edu 

 

Provost Dennis Mitchell

dml48@cumc.columbia.edu . . .

 

Dear President Shafik and colleagues:

 

We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern about Columbia University’s decision to suspend the university’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) for the remainder of the fall semester, thereby rendering them ineligible to receive funding or hold campus events. This decision, made in contravention of established rules of university governance and discipline, strikes us as a violation of your university’s avowed commitment to defend and respect the free speech rights and academic freedom of its students, faculty and staff. It is also contrary to your obligation to foster a campus culture in which students and other members of the Columbia University community are able to freely express and debate a broad range of opinions. 

 

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the prestigious International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2,800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and outside of North America.

 

As we understand it, the two student organizations were suspended, at least in part, for what university officials characterized as “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.” However, to our knowledge, Columbia has not explained which specific speech acts or actions allegedly justified the suspension. Moreover, we understand that the decision to suspend these two groups was not made in conformity with Columbia’s normal policies and procedures but by a newly established “Special Committee on Campus Safety.” In addition, the SJP and JVP chapters have apparently yet to be told precisely what they need to do to be reinstated as recognized student organizations according to the university’s rules. 

 

It is difficult to avoid the impression that university rules were altered and a new committee secretly created precisely in order to suspend two student groups that were voicing viewpoints the university leadership disfavored. The suspension thus represents the usurpation of unilateral and unaccountable power by the central administration in violation of fundamental academic values of shared governance. Moreover, it violates Columbia’s commitment to its own avowed values, embodied in its Rules of University Conduct, Section 440: “A principal reason why universities have endured and flourished over centuries is that they provide a place for ideas to be tested, for values to be questioned, and for minds to be changed with as few constraints as possible. Like society at large, but even more so, the University has a vital interest in fostering a climate in which nothing is immune from scrutiny. And Columbia, in particular, has a long tradition of valuing dissent and controversy and in welcoming the clash of opinions onto the campus.” 

 

In these fraught times university leaders have a heightened responsibility to protect the freedom of speech and academic freedom of all members of the university community. As MESA’s Board of Directors put it in a statement dated 16 October 2023: “We call on university leaders and administrations to affirmatively assert and protect the rights to academic freedom and freedom of speech on their campuses. We reaffirm that there can be no compromise of the right and ability of students, faculty, and staff at universities across North America (and elsewhere) to express their viewpoints free of harassment, intimidation, and threats to their livelihoods and safety.”

 

We therefore call on you to promptly rescind the arbitrary decision to suspend Columbia University’s SJP and JVP chapters. We further call on you to protect all of the university’s students, faculty and staff in the exercise of their right to freedom of speech and of association, without fear of threat, harassment or intimidation. Finally, especially in these troubled times, we urge you to resolutely defend the principles of academic freedom which are so essential to the intellectual and educational missions of our institutions of higher education and to a democratic society.

 

We look forward to your response,

 

Sincerely,

 

Aslı Ü. Bâli 

MESA President

Professor, Yale Law School

 

Laurie Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

Liz Magill

President, the University of Pennsylvania

president@upenn.edu

 

John Jackson

Provost, the University of Pennsylvania

provost@upenn.edu

Dear President Magill and colleagues:

 

We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern about your failure to respond to the defamation and harassment to which at least three of your faculty have been subjected as a result of remarks they made regarding the war in Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of which it is a part. In these fraught times university leaders have a heightened responsibility to protect the freedom of speech, academic freedom and physical safety of all members of the campus community. The failure of Penn’s leadership to speak out in defense of these faculty members is thus an abdication of professional and academic responsibility and, intentionally or not, sends the message that you countenance the defamation and harassment to which they have been subjected.

 

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the prestigious International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2,800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and outside of North America.

 

Sometime in late October 2023, a person calling himself “Penn Jew Against Terrorism” posted a petition on the change.org website under the title “Remove Anti-Semitic Professors from UPenn’s Campus.” The petition alleged that three of your faculty – Huda J. Fakhreddine, Associate Professor of Arabic Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC); Fatemeh Shams, Associate Professor of Persian Literature in NELC; and Dr. Ahmad Almallah, an art­ist-in-residence at Penn’s Creative Writing Program – had made antisemitic remarks at various public events in recent weeks and on Twitter/X.

 

These allegations are based on the tendentious conflation of criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and its well-documented violations of Palestinian rights and aspirations with antisemitism. None of the three faculty members whose dismissal from the Penn faculty the petition is demanding attacked Jews as such, and in their recorded remarks two of them explicitly denounced the indiscriminate killing of Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023 and condemned antisemitism. The author of this petition apparently deems any criticism of Israel for its policies toward the Palestinians, and specifically the military campaign Israel is currently waging in Gaza, as self-evidently antisemitic. Such a broad and vague definition of antisemitism, and its politicized deployment to silence critical voices, is dangerous and serves to undermine legitimate efforts to combat actual hate speech and real manifestations of antisemitism.

 

We note your laudable concern for Jewish students, faculty and staff at Penn, expressed most recently in your email message to the university community dated 6 November 2023. In that message you stated: “The perniciousness of antisemitic acts on our campus is causing deep hurt and fear for our Jewish students, faculty, and staff and shaking their sense of safety and belonging at Penn. This is intolerable. I condemn personally these vicious and hateful antisemitic acts and words.” We regret that you do not seem to have clearly expressed the same concern for the “sense of safety and belonging” of faculty, students and staff at Penn who (like Professors Fakhredinne and Shams, and Dr. Almallah) have been harassed because they are of Middle East origin (but not from Israel) and/or because they have engaged in legitimate advocacy for Palestinian rights. Like other members of the University of Pennsylvania community, these faculty, students and staff are entitled to your recognition and support. Your silence about such incidents is thus distressing and manifests an abdication of your responsibility. 

 

This country’s institutions of higher education should be places in which a broad range of perspectives can be expressed, debated and criticized. This is all the more important now, when violence is raging in the Middle East, our own government is so deeply involved in what is happening, and various individuals and organizations with a political agenda are weaponizing allegations of antisemitism in order to disparage and silence people with whom they disagree. 

 

We therefore call upon you to publicly denounce the defamation and harassment to which these three members of your faculty are being subjected and to do whatever you can to have the offensive change.org petition taken down. More broadly, we urge you to forcefully reiterate your commitment to protect the safety and well-being of all members of the University of Pennsylvania community and to defend their constitutionally protected right to free speech as well as their academic freedom. 

 

We look forward to your response,

 

Sincerely,

 

Aslı Ü. Bâli 

MESA President

Professor, Yale Law School

 

Laurie Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

 

Cc.

Professor Heather Sharkey

Chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

hsharkey@sas.upenn.edu

Asher Cohen 

President, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

hupres@savion.huji.ac.il 

Christopher Eisgruber

President, Princeton University

fax: 609-258-1615

 

Professor Gene Jarrett 

Dean of the Faculty, Princeton University 

gjarrett@princeton.edu

 

Professor Jill Dolan 

Dean of the College, Princeton University

jsdolan@princeton.edu

 

Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi

Chair, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

behroozg@princeton.edu

 

Dear President Eisgruber and colleagues:

 

We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern about the attacks to which Assistant Professor Satyel Larson has been subjected because she chose to include a particular book on the reading list of a course she plans to offer in fall 2023. These politically motivated attacks seek to prevent a member of Princeton’s faculty from exposing her students to certain perspectives by, in effect, banning a scholarly work. They thereby threaten the principles of academic freedom which your university is committed to uphold.

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the prestigious International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2,800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and outside of North America.

Professor Larson’s reading list for her course “The Healing Humanities: Decolonizing Trauma Studies from the Global South” (Near Eastern Studies 301) includes The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, by Professor Jasbir Puar of Rutgers University, published in 2017 by Duke University Press. The book received many positive reviews and in 2018 won the National Women’s Studies Association’s Alison Piepmeier Book Prize, awarded each year to “a groundbreaking monograph in women, gender, and sexuality studies that makes significant contributions to feminist disability studies scholarship.” Nonetheless, because The Right to Maim includes critical analysis of Israeli state violence toward the Palestinians under its rule, the executive director of Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life, several American Jewish organizations, a number of media outlets and a minister in the Israeli government have, according to media reports, alleged that the book is antisemitic and demanded that it be removed from Professor Larson’s reading list. 

We regard this campaign as yet another distressing instance in which self-described supporters of Israel have tendentiously weaponized false allegations of antisemitism and “anti-Israel bias” in order to silence criticism of that state and of its policies and practices toward the Palestinians. This weaponization is rooted in a dangerous conflation of criticism of Israel, of Zionism as a political ideology and of Israeli state policies, on the one hand, and antisemitism on the other. The current effort to intimidate a member of Princeton’s faculty into denying her students access to an important scholarly work simply because some people based outside academia do not like what the book has to say constitutes, like other recent efforts by state and local authorities in this country to ban certain books, an egregious assault on the constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression. It is also a grave threat to the academic freedom of Professor Larson and every other member of Princeton’s faculty. As the American Association of University Professors put it in 1940, “academic freedom in its teaching aspect is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student to freedom in learning.”

We therefore call on you, as leaders of Princeton University, to publicly and vigorously express your full support for Professor Larson and for her right as a member of your faculty to decide what and how to teach her students. We further call on you to reaffirm Princeton’s continuing commitment to freedom of expression and to academic freedom, and to develop, in collaboration with your faculty, policies to ensure an effective response to the kind of harassment to which Professor Larson has been subjected.

 

We look forward to your response.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Eve Troutt Powell

MESA President

Professor, University of Pennsylvania

 

Laurie Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran

c/o H.E. Mr. Takht-Ravanchi

Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

622 Third Avenue, 34th Floor

New York, NY 10017, USA

Email: iran@un.int

Fax: +1 (212) 867-7086

 

Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, Head of the Judiciary

c/o H.E. Mr. Takht-Ravanchi

Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

622 Third Avenue, 34th Floor

New York, NY 10017, USA

Email: iran@un.int

Fax: +1 (212) 867-7086

 

Your Excellencies,

 

We write on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) of North America to protest the heightened pressures and crackdowns on university women’s dress, negatively impacting their rights to education. We are particularly concerned about the various types of harassment and unjust punishment that female university students have been subjected to since the eruption of the “woman, life, freedom” protests across Iran in September 2022. Such harassment has included suspension or expulsion from university, arrest or threats of lengthy prison sentences for students who defy the country’s hijab laws or show solidarity with the protesters. Barring students from university campuses or expunging their grades and university credits for lawful acts of civil disobedience violates their right to education, a fundamental right that is protected under Iranian law. We therefore call for the immediate reversal of such mistreatment. We demand that Iranian officials protect rather than restrict women’s access to education and academic freedom.

 

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, MESA publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has close to 2800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

 

MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom has repeatedly condemned violations of academic freedom that have occurred on university campuses throughout Iran. In our most recent letters, we protested the violent attacks on academic institutions, teachers and students who joined the demonstrations following the death in custody of Mahsa (Jhina) Amini  (October 2022) and condemned Iranian authorities’ inadequate efforts at finding and punishing the perpetrators of mass poisoning of female students at various institutions across  the country (March 2023). We are concerned that instead of working to foster a safe academic environment conducive to education, the government is engaged in intensified efforts to securitize Iranian universities and subject students and faculty to greater surveillance, pressure, and harassment. 

 

We condemn the April 2023 statement by Iran’s Education Ministry that threatened banning educational services to students who do not follow dress codes, including the restrictive form of hijab. Since the issuance of that statement, repeated reports have revealed that authorities have in fact threatened female students with suspension, expulsion, and arrest for defying the country’s head-covering laws. In recent weeks, at least 60 female students have been barred from university, while many more face expulsion or the erasure of their grades and university credits for having  resisted mandatory veiling. Such rulings are handed down to students at hearings organized by university disciplinary committees which provide no opportunity for the accused to contest the accusations or appeal. Other recent reports document university security teams violently raiding dormitories and harassing and arresting students either for sharing social media posts in support of the protesters or women’s right to freedom of dress, or for participating in student sit-ins or strikes.

 

We are further concerned that the hijab and chastity bill currently under consideration by the Iranian parliament as introduced by the Judicial and Legal Committee mandates harsher punishments for those with “a bad hijab,” ranging from sizable fines to several years in prison. The bill also expands the authority of Iran’s police apparatuses to empower university security teams to surveil and “deal” with women with “bad hijab”. This includes the surveillance of students’ social media activity that demonstrates opposition to the hijab, as well as the use of artificial intelligence to identify women in breach of the dress code. This bill further mandates gender segregation at universities alongside other spaces that until now were co-ed, such as hospitals and offices. Gender segregation at institutions of higher education can greatly undermine the quality of education received and expertise gained, limiting opportunities for important exchange and dialogue across genders, perspectives, and experiences.

 

Access to education free from violence and intimidation is a fundamental human right for all individuals regardless of gender. Iran has committed to the protection of this right, both in its national laws and in ratifying relevant international treaties, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The violent crackdowns on female students as they exercise their right to freedom of expression contradict such commitments. In addition, limiting women’s access to education will negatively impact progress and development in Iran, a country that depends on the expertise and contributions of all its citizens. The Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association thus requests the immediate reversal of any suspension or expulsion decisions that have been handed down to university students, and the end to such unjust treatment. We also demand that Iranian authorities cease the securitization of universities and end all forms of surveillance, harassment, or pressure of students and faculty, including those who are engaging in peaceful protests and exercising their basic right to freedom of expression. We urge the state and university officials to protect students and faculty and safeguard their rights on university campuses and beyond. 

 

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to your response.

 

Sincerely,

 

Eve M. Troutt Powell

MESA President

Professor, University of Pennsylvania

 

Laurie A. Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

 

cc:

 

His Excellency Ebrahim Raisi, President

The Honorable Mahmoud Alavi, Minister of Intelligence

The Honorable Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Minister of Foreign Affairs

The Honorable Takht-Ravanchi, Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations

The Honorable Volker Türk , UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Honorable Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Honorable Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders 

The Honorable Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Physical and Mental Health

The Honorable Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression 

Maria Arena, Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

Viktor Almqvist, Press Officer for the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) of the European Parliament

Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

Fiona Knab-Lunny, Member of Cabinet of Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

Hannah Neumann, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

Raphael Glucksmann, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

Bernard Guetta, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

Christian Sagartz, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

Kati Piri, Member of the Dutch Parliament (The House of Representatives) 

David McAllister, Committee on Foreign Affairs, European Parliament

Mr. Alejandro Mayorkas

Secretary

Department of Homeland Security

Washington DC

alejandro.mayorkas@hq.dhs.gov

 

Mr. Anthony Blinken

Secretary

Department of State

Washington DC

secretary@state.gov

 

Dear Secretary Mayorkas and Secretary Blinken:

 

We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom in order to express our concern regarding the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) recently concluded between the United States and Israel concerning Israel’s admission to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP). Many MESA members conduct research or engage in scholarship and study that requires travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). We therefore write out of concern that these members, whether students, faculty or researchers, may face discrimination and exclusion under the terms of the MOU.

 

We have reviewed the version of the MOU dated 19 July 2023, recognizing that an official version is yet to be published, together with the voluntary reporting portal and the Israeli government website containing instructions on how to apply for entry to Israel and the OPT. We are deeply concerned that the provisions of the MOU may negatively impact U.S. citizens and nationals seeking entry to Israel or the OPT, especially Palestinian-Americans, Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans, as well as Americans of other backgrounds who wish to travel to Israel or the OPT for study or research. There is good reason to expect that, on illegitimate grounds that the U.S. government will be unable to adequately assess, review or challenge, U.S. citizens and nationals may be denied entry because of their ethnic, national or religious identity, or because they have expressed certain views regarding Israeli policies. Such grounds may include alleged Israeli security concerns and alleged violation of Israeli laws against advocacy of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Tolerating such denials of entry would constitute a violation of the constitutional right of US citizens and nationals to freedom of speech and expression, and would also infringe the principles of academic freedom. 

 

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 3000 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere. 

 

We are most concerned about the following four issues with the MOU and the initiation of a trial period for a VWP with Israel:

 

First, the MOU adopts existing Israeli policy for differential treatment of certain categories of U.S. citizen travelers, subjecting those who hold a Palestinian Authority identity card to a variety of separate requirements and permissions while U.S. citizens not on the Palestinian population registry will benefit from a standard waiver of such restrictions to entry. This means that, by definition under the MOU, Israel will be entitled to impose additional conditions on the entry of some American students and scholars to Israel for short-term visits, whereas no comparable restrictions are imposed on Israeli citizens’ access to the U.S. These discriminatory restrictions will adversely affect opportunities for access to Israel for research and scholarly exchange from which our members ought to be entitled to benefit. We therefore believe that the MOU should be revised to explicitly rule out exclusion on such grounds.

 

Second, the MOU allows a discriminatory regime to govern access to Gaza in ways that would adversely impact our members. The arbitrary restrictions on U.S. citizens’ access to Gaza under the MOU make it nearly impossible for students and scholars to travel to that territory, impeding ordinary scholarly exchanges and conduct of short-term research typically made possible under a VWP. Given that access to Gaza is directly controlled by Israel, whose citizens will benefit under the MOU from unfettered access to the United States, restrictions and exclusion from Gaza should be lifted as a condition of reciprocity. Moreover, access to Gaza is also subject to restriction and regulation based on the national origin or religion of U.S. citizen academics and students seeking to travel. We are deeply concerned that these restrictions will impede the academic freedom of a subset of students and scholars seeking to study and conduct research in a territory administered by Israel, with no reciprocal restrictions on Israeli academics in their access to territories controlled by the U.S. We urge the Biden administration to address the non-reciprocal character of the MOU by requiring that Israel lift the provisions pertaining to access to Gaza as well as access to Israel for American citizens with family ties to Gaza.

 

Third, we are concerned that the MOU applies only to Israeli citizens, rather than to nationals as provided under federal statute. We believe that this amounts to excluding scholars and students who are Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem – and who are issued Israeli travel documents and should qualify as nationals as defined by the VWP statute – from benefitting from VWP access to the United States. Given the clear language of the relevant statute, the omission of the term “nationals,” which would encompass East Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents, imposes arbitrary, discriminatory and impermissible restrictions on members of MESA and other scholars and students who wish to access the United States to benefit from scholarly exchanges and short-term research visits, including attendance of MESA’s annual meeting, the largest international gathering of scholars in the field of Middle East studies.

 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, given Israel’s long and well-documented record of excluding Palestinian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans and other American citizens based on suspected pro-Palestinian sympathies or activism on alleged “security” grounds, we are deeply concerned that the academic freedom of many American scholars in the field of Middle East studies will be adversely impacted by the ongoing imposition of arbitrary exclusion from Israel under the terms of the MOU. 

 

As it stands, the MOU does not explicitly require as part of the agreement on reciprocity that arbitrary use of “security” as a basis for exclusion be ended. While legitimate and evidence-based security concerns, matched with due process, may be a permissible basis for both countries to retain rights of exclusion, Israel’s practice of exclusion without either evidentiary basis or procedural protections must be terminated. The practice of using national or religious origin or protected speech as a proxy for exclusion amounts to impermissible discrimination and violations of the right to free speech, which adversely impacts the academic freedom of U.S. students and scholars. 

 

We note that Israel currently treats human rights scrutiny of its practices – including by leading human rights organizations internationally and within Israel – or activism on behalf of Palestinian rights as a “security” threat or evidence of antisemitism. With the potential admission of Israel to the VWP, there is every risk that Israeli officials will deny American scholars and students entry to Israel on the basis of spurious allegations of antisemitism, which will result not only in arbitrary restrictions on scholarly travel but also taint those accused. We therefore urge the Biden administration to clarify that the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism does not extend the definition of antisemitism to criticism of Israeli state policies or actions. The MOU must also make it clear that criticism of Israeli state practices or actions is protected by the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of expression and academic freedom, and cannot serve as a basis to exclude U.S. citizens from the VWP. 

 

In light of our concerns, we ask that you immediately suspend the initiation of a trial period for the admission of Israel to the VWP and revise the MOU to explicitly provide for protections against discrimination based on national or religious origin or protected speech activities. We further urge you to take measures to ensure that all U.S. citizens and nationals are given equal access to the benefits of visa-free travel to Israel and the OPT before taking any additional steps towards the inclusion of Israel in the VWP program.

 

We look forward to your response.

 

Sincerely,

 

Eve Troutt Powell

MESA President

Professor, University of Pennsylvania

 

Laurie Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

 

 

cc: 

 

Senator Gary Peters

Chair, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

United States Senate

via fax: (202) 224-7387

 

Shoba Sivaprasada Wadhia

Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Department of Homeland Security

shoba.sivaprasadwadhia@hq.dhs.gov 

 

Andrew P. Miller

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Department of State

millerAP1@state.gov

 

Hady Amr

Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Department of State

AmrHA@state.gov 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran

c/o H.E. Mr. Takht-Ravanchi

Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations

622 Third Avenue, 34th Floor

New York, NY 10017, USA

Email: iran@un.int

Fax: +1 (212) 867-7086 . . .

His Majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

King of Saudi Arabia and Custodian of the two Holy Mosques

Fax: (via Ministry of the Interior) +966 11 403 3125

 

His Royal Highness Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud

Crown Prince, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Fax: (via Ministry of the Interior) +966 11 403 3125 . . .

 

 

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellency:

 

We write to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to protest in the strongest possible terms the ongoing incarceration of the prominent scholar Dr. Awad al-Qarni, and the recent request by Saudi prosecutors that he be sentenced to death. We believe that the charges levelled against Dr. al-Qarni, and the possibility of a death penalty, are entirely disproportionate to the alleged “crimes” he has committed. They are incongruous with the values, vision and reforms your government claims to advance,  as well as being an affront to human rights. 

 

MESA was founded in 1966 to support scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2400 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

 

Awad al-Qarni, a prominent, pro-reform scholar and law professor in Saudi Arabia, was forcibly arrested in September 2017 under the counter-terrorism law and has been charged with several alleged crimes involving social media usage. According to documents seen by The Guardian newspaper, which include al-Qarni’s ‘confession’, these charges include having and using a Twitter account to share ‘at every opportunity….his opinions’, using WhatsApp to share views ‘hostile’ to the Kingdom, and creating and using a Telegram account.  He has also been accused of joining and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood,  “incitement to offend the leaders of other States,” and “incitement to fight in conflict zones.” Public prosecutors have called for the death penalty. Amnesty International has stated that such political cases are often based on ‘unfair’ trials and ‘confessions’ obtained through torture or other ill-treatment. 

 

Al-Qarni was a member of the ‘Sahwa movement’ in the early 1990s.  He has subsequently been portrayed in Saudi-controlled media as a dangerous preacher and extremist, despite his being a well-regarded intellectual with a strong social media following, including 2 million Twitter followers. Al-Qarni’s case is part of a trend observed by the human rights group, Reprieve, of scholars facing the death penalty for peacefully tweeting and expressing their views. 

 

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellency, using social media, including Telegram, Twitter, or Whatsapp, for peaceful purposes, is not a crime and certainly does not warrant the death penalty. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest rates of Twitter usage globally, and the Kingdom Holding Company has been one of Twitter’s biggest shareholders for a long time, a trend that has continued under its new ownership. Reports of draconian sentences for those using social media to peacefully express their political views are, therefore, particularly alarming given the high potential user base. Most recently, in August 2022, Salma al Shehab, a Saudi citizen studying at Leeds University in the UK,  was sentenced to 34 years in prison for her peaceful and lawful use of social media (see letter dated 7 September 2022).

 

We call on your government to categorically reject the prosecutor’s call for the death penalty and to release from prison Awad al-Qarni, as well as the other highly-regarded clerics —  Drs. Salman Al-Aoudah, Hassan al-Maliki and Ali al-Omari – who, like al-Qarni, were arrested in September 2017 and charged with activities that do not resemble crimes.  Furthermore, we reiterate our concern with the very harsh sentences levelled against other Saudi citizens for their peaceful use of social media. In addition to Salma al Shehab, Nourah al-Qahtani was sentenced to 45 years in prison for “using the internet to tear social fabric” and “violate public order” in Saudi Arabia. 

 

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, and Your Excellency, despite your government’s social reforms, substantial investment in Vision 2030 and promotion of Saudi youth as a key driver for change, such harsh sentences contradict the very goals you seek to achieve. We implore your government to take prompt action to cease the persecution and criminalization of peaceful expression of opinions.

 

Sincerely,