UCT, Gaza, and the Ethics of Solidarity​

UCT’s first resolution affirms the legitimacy of criticising Israel and Zionism, and rejects the disingenuous conflation of doing so with antisemitism. Of relevance here is the 2022 judgment of our Constitutional Court in Masuku, where the Court was unanimous in its commitment to clearly and carefully distinguishing utterances referring to Jewish people or Judaism from utterances referring to Zionists or the state of Israel. UCT is obviously subject to this judgment, and thus obliged to diligently apply such a distinction in its policies as well. While Mendelsohn claims that the IHRA definition of antisemitism and its accompanying illustrative examples do not necessarily conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, it is now well established that the IHRA definition has in practice routinely been weaponised across the globe as a means to doing just that. Even the IHRA’s lead drafter, Kenneth S. Stern, has been outspoken about this since 2017, lamenting that “the working definition has been primarily used (and I argue, grossly abused) to suppress and chill pro-Palestinian speech.”

Indeed, the weaponising of the IHRA definition to entrench such a conflation harms not only Palestinians but also Jewish people, by suggesting that the illegal and abusive actions of the State of Israel are somehow inherently Jewish — an antisemitic notion in itself. Similarly, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which UCT’s resolution endorses as an alternative, and which was crafted in direct response to the IHRA, argues that the IHRA “has caused confusion and generated controversy, thereby undermining the fight against antisemitism.” Mendelsohn, notably, is a founding signatory of this declaration. Once again, whatever the bureaucracy of the matter may find, it is inarguable that UCT should distinguish carefully between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, and take concrete and deliberate steps toward preventing the former from being erroneously censored on the basis of the latter. 

Meanwhile, on the matter of UCT’s resolution prohibiting affiliations with the IDF, one needs look no further than the comprehensive and ever-developing body of international law on the matter. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The ICJ has found that a plausible case exists for the invocation of the Genocide Convention to protect the Palestinian people of Gaza. In a separate case, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion definitively declaring Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem to be unlawful. Notably, the opinion included a reminder of the General Assembly’s resolution 32/161 (1977) which called upon “all States, international organizations, specialized agencies, investment corporations and all other institutions not to recognize, or cooperate with or assist in any manner in, any measures undertaken by Israel to exploit the resources of the occupied territories or to effect any changes in the demographic composition or geographic character or institutional structure of those territories.”

South Africa’s own Judge Tladi, who our Vice-Chancellor hosted last year for the prestigious TB Davie Memorial Lecture, penned an additional declaration as part of the judgment, expressing directly that, “if we compare the policies of the South African apartheid regime with the practices of Israel in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] it is impossible not to come to the conclusion that they are similar. On the basis of the Court’s finding concerning the various policies and practices it is hard not to see that Israeli policies, legislation and practices involve widespread discrimination against Palestinians in nearly all aspects of life much like the case in apartheid South Africa. There is for the most part an intentional effort to ensure separation of and discrimination between Israelis and Palestinians: separate roads, separate schools, separate facilities, and separate legal systems. Whether one speaks of the discriminatory detention practices, including detention without trial (not addressed in the Opinion but for which there is extensive information in the case file), residence permit system, restrictions of movement or demolition of property, deprivation of land, or the encircling of Palestinian communities into enclaves reminiscent of South African Bantustans from which I come, it is impossible to miss the similarities.” 

Soon after the ICJ’s advisory opinion, the UN General Assembly (including South Africa) overwhelmingly voted in favour of a resolution which demands Israel end its unlawful occupation within 12 months — with 9 months having passed since. Subsequently, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and Israel released a legal analysis of the ICJ’s advisory opinion, offering recommendations as to its implementation. Among other recommendations was the suggestion that, “all States are also under an obligation to act, individually and collectively, to bring the unlawful occupation to an end, including by building political, economic and cultural pressure on the Israeli Government to end the unlawful occupation. States must do all that is necessary and reasonable to ensure that the Israeli Government brings its wrongful acts to an end as rapidly as possible.“

While the above rulings and recommendations apply more directly to states than universities, they nevertheless provide a direct legitimation of and encouragement for the application of external pressure as a tool for bringing about change in this context. The principle of the matter is very clear, and if UCT is to be taken seriously as an institution committed to “social justice” and advancing “the pace of transformation within our university and beyond” then the sheer moral clarity of the moment should be enough to dispose the university to act accordingly.

Those who have been engaged in institutional discourse at UCT over the past year will have heard the objectives of academic freedom, funding and collegiality repeatedly emphasised by our Vice-Chancellor. We agree that all three are of critical importance to the university and its functioning. In our understanding, academic freedom is first and foremost protected by valuing truth over power, which in the present instance would suggest standing firm with UCT’s academics in their legitimate stand against Israel’s assault on Gaza. While the IDF resolution limits certain academic collaborations, this is an ordinary ethical consequence where academic freedom is abused to engage in human rights violations. Before 1994, our right to freedom in South Africa necessitated an academic boycott as a weapon against those in power.

In 2024 the American Association of University Professors, after opposing academic boycott for decades, reviewed their position and now “recognizes that when faculty members choose to support academic boycotts, they can legitimately seek to protect and advance the academic freedom and fundamental rights of colleagues and students who are living and working under circumstances that violate that freedom and one or more of those rights. In such contexts, academic boycotts are not in themselves violations of academic freedom; rather, they can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education.”
The UCT Gaza resolutions are synchronous with this view.

While genuine academic freedom defends truth against power, deferring to financial incentives over ethical obligation would appear to do the opposite. Indeed, if the motivation for our acts of collective solidarity is holding power to account, the notion that when said power retaliates against us we should back off is entirely self-defeating.

Nonetheless, the question of funding is critical to the sustainability of any institution. It is however important to acknowledge that UCT’s general operating budget depends almost entirely on funding from government, tuition and merchandising. Thus, without downplaying the significance of donor funding and the research it enables, we should not be fooled into believing that the withdrawal of such funding represents an existential threat to UCT. Similarly, it is reassuring to note that UCT has achieved a break-even budget for 2025 after years of massive deficits. Undeniably further fundraising efforts are necessary to meet the Trump administration’s curtailment of funding around the world, including in South Africa. We note Universities South Africa’s approach to the government to assist universities in protecting critical research.

As for collegiality, it is important to ask just what sort of unity we are interested in building at UCT. While we would all hope for a university environment which fosters critical engagement from diverse perspectives, it is unclear why this should include the exaggerated appeasement of those who would act against the most basic moral, legal, and institutional imperatives laid out above. Combating polarisation is not about expecting everyone to agree but rather about collectively committing to shared foundations, as encapsulated in our Bill of Rights and informed by our own history of oppression, and then welcoming contestation within those parameters. Of course, this also means that our foundations need to be strong, remaining firm in the face of targeted pressure campaigns that would seek to undermine them.