Extreme leftwing NGO Gush Shalom (the Peace Bloc) attempted to sabotage a conference organized by Ariel University in Samaria, involving senior foreign academics, 20IL reported Sunday. A letter Gush Shalom sent the invited researchers said:
“The settler university in Ariel, in the West bank, is about to hold what is being presented as an international conference on the current condition of the Jewish nation. In order o be able to get lectors and researchers from abroad to participate, the university used an intentionally deceitful representation, arguing that it stands inside Israel proper – while the university management is very well aware that it stands in an occupied territory which isn’t and never was part of the State of Israel.”
The NGO told foreign researchers: “It is important that you know that your participation in this conference will be more than just an academic activity of passing on your knowledge and experience in a discussion of the state of the Jewish nation. Whether you are aware of it or not, your participation in this conference, under the fraudulent location ‘Ariel, Israel,’ will also mean taking a political stand on the most controversial issue between Israel and the international community and between Israel and the Palestinians – which is also the most controversial issue among the different parties and political factions within Israeli society.”
Gush Shalom called on the foreign academics to “act based on full and accurate information, as befits someone who is committed to honesty and academic accuracy.”
Gush Shalom was founded in 1993 by one of the more colorful but not very influential Israeli journalist, publisher and MK Uri Avneri. One of the first Israelis to have met publicly with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Avnery, 93, was among the founders of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace in 1975.