An Urgent Appeal to International Education Colleagues

Mark A. Ashwill Announcement, Commentary, , , , , , , , ,

I can’t wrap my heart, mind, and soul around the depressing and infuriating fact that so many international education colleagues have remained silent about the ongoing Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Where is their empathy, compassion, and oft-stated commitment to global citizenship? Where is their humanity?

As I stated in a recent article, we need actions not just words. If speaking out against genocide and ethnic cleansing could cost you your job, there are many other opportunities for you to do the right thing and oppose these war crimes and crimes against humanity.

​A US international education colleague informed me on LinkedIn “It’s time to pause your communication with me on the Gaza war. I appreciate your research, however, it feels like you’re trying to ‘better’ educate me about a position you subscribe to​.” My position is simple. I’m opposed to and condemn genocide and ethnic cleansing. He’s one of the people I was thinking about when I wrote these articles and the one on hypocrisy linked below:

International educators need to end their silence on Gaza (13.1.24)

Let’s ditch the binaries and join the ‘all of humanity’ club (19.10.23)

My colleague’s position? His reference to “the Gaza war” tells you everything you need to know. For reasons beyond my comprehension, some people, and not just Zionists, will “stand with Israel” until the last Palestinian has been exterminated. All evidence to the contrary, they’ll be talking about self-defense and the hostages till the cows come home. Meanwhile, innocent men, women, and children continue to be injured, killed, starved, and displaced.

Here are some suggestions for what you can and should be doing.

Educate Yourself

I created this page to post links to articles, reports, videos, etc. Information and knowledge are power and enable you to better understand the current situation and to counter any of the flimsy Zionist arguments presented to somehow justify genocide. Since 7 October 2023, I have learned a great deal about the historical context of what is happening today in the spirit of What’s past is prologue.

One excellent resource is Bystanders No More. Helping people speak up about human rights in Palestine.

Another is Tech for Palestine, an incubator that “helps pro-Palestine advocates build, grow, and scale their work towards a Free Palestine. We support projects — whether collections of individuals, registered non-profits, or even companies — whose mission helps Palestine, especially advocacy groups building technical products or in the tech space.”

Know Thine Enemy

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. ~Maya Angelou

This includes “Educate Yourself” and understanding the background and goals of the “Greater Israel” project, a logical extension of Zionism on steroids. This includes the basics of the Zionist propaganda framework. You can start with this ARTE tv documentary Israel: Extremists in Power, available until 24.2.25, and this article based on the same documentary Smotrich: Israel’s future is ‘to expand to Damascus’ (13.10.24).

This expansionist policy, with the unconscionable military support and political cover of the US, the UK, and Germany, among other countries, will not end well for Israel, not to mention the people left displaced, injured, dying, and dead in its wake. They all have the blood of innocents on their hands. There is no dialogue with the devil only fierce and never-ending opposition in thought, word, and deed.

Conscious-Raising

Write and talk about what’s going on in Gaza whenever you can. I discuss the concept of allyship and how to use your privilege in this recent essay The glaring hypocrisy of establishment US international education.

Take these words of Han Kang, the first Korean writer and the first female Asian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, to heart: The last line of defense by which human beings can remain human is the complete and true perception of another’s suffering, which wins out over all of these biases. And the fact that actual, practical volition and action, which goes beyond simple compassion for the suffering of others, is demanded of us at every moment. Be truly human.

Donations

Very little aid is being allowed to enter Gaza. Finances permitting, support reputable organizations that do what they can to help and assist individuals in Gaza who are properly vetted via crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe and Chuffed.

Economic Boycotts Work

Boycott companies that support Israel in any shape or form or that have punished employees for expressing their solidarity with Palestinians and Palestine. Boycotts work. Just ask Starbucks and McDonald’s. Check this app: Boycat. Here’s information about the app and its developer: Boycotting for Palestine: How Adil Abbuthalha’s ‘Boycat’ App is revolutionising ethical shopping. The Watermelon Index is a tool for worker-led resistance against the occupation and genocide in Palestine. It is a database of companies that are complicit in Israel’s crimes, and the worker campaigns against them.

Here’s a similar website.

In this edited version of a journal paper, Cheryl Yu looks at the importance of value-based practice for international educators. It relates to the genocide in Gaza, among many other burning issues of the day: International education for the oppressed: A framework for international educators’ value-based practice.

Do the right thing. Live your professed values. History will judge you accordingly. Closer to home, you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day.

Will you join me and millions of others with a “complete and true perception of another’s suffering… And the fact that actual, practical volition and action, which goes beyond simple compassion for the suffering of others, is demanded of us at every moment”?

Israel is a terrorist state that will pay a high price for its actions in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere. That is one consolation amidst all the misery and suffering of the people there. Among my heroes are those Israelis who have declared their solidarity with the Palestinians, and who risk reputation, livelihood, life, and limb for speaking out against the genocide and acting according to their beliefs.

Peace, MAA

12 thoughts on “An Urgent Appeal to International Education Colleagues”

  1. From Kelly Southcott, a LinkedIn contact:

    Kelly Southcott 🍉 Wild Soul | Coach | Facilitator | Mindful Activist | Life-Centred Strategist | Mummy

    There’s an irony in Israel’s stance that “supporting Palestine means you believe Israel doesn’t have a right to exist”, which we can all learn from.

    The vast majority of people that I know started out believing Israel has a right to exist.

    They agreed it just *doesn’t* have a right to be a theocratic, oligarchic, zionist, apartheid state.

    If Israel were to return to it’s pre-1967 borders, “allow” Palestine to self-determine, give equal rights within Israel and give reparations, there could be peace in the Middle East. But they don’t want that.

    A survey of Israelis said they didn’t want this to happen because of “security concerns”.

    Basically, you give Palestinians the space they need to thrive and they’ll come and get us.

    Right?

    Wrong.

    The truth: Take away the rights of Palestinians, govern their boarders and essentially keep them in an open air prison, periodically going in and humiliating, torturing, murdering children, women and men, and eventually they’ll retaliate.

    So, now, the insistence that supporting Palestine means, by definition, that we believe Israel doesn’t have a right to exist, is becoming true.

    Because they’re making people choose. In their actions and their words, they’re making us choose.

    From a place of limited understanding, I always believed that Israel had a right to exist. Much like the United States of America, like Brazil, like Peru, like Australia, like Canada. Like every other nation that was born of bloody colonisation and built on the blood, skin and bones of the indigenous.

    I didn’t support what they had done. But that was in the past, I said. “We’d never do that now.” I thought it wasn’t right to take the land back from the innocent people born to this new world.

    Now, though, I see that it wasn’t in the past and that the question for any one of us isn’t “do we have the right to exist.”

    The question is: “Do we have a right to control, oppress and murder people in order to take their land and resources, then pretend it never happened whilst we continue to control, oppress and murder them?”

    And we know that’s the only question, now

    All thanks to Israel.

    Reply

  9. From a 2nd LinkedIn contact:

    Nils Brenkman • Señor Code Monkey

    Since I regularly started writing posts on LinkedIn, I received three types of personal messages.

    Of course, there are the meaningless accusations of anti-semitism, which I found as easy to block mentally as digitally.

    Then there are kind messages of support, or even gratitude for saying out loud what we can all see with our own eyes. They are encouraging and saddening at the same time. I guess that’s the world we live in.

    Lastly, there are messages from Gazans, showing me pictures of their lives, their children, pleading for help. What do you say to someone who’s enduring the genocide for which we, the West, all share responsibility? Sorry, I’m already doing everything I can? Sorry, your suffering is more than I can bear? If you know the answer, please let me know.

    The dehumanization of Palestinians we see on this platform and everywhere else happens in a context. But it’s not the Palestinians that will lose their humanity.

    It’s us.

    Reply

  11. Mohamed ABOUELALA EL IDRISSI محمد أبو العلاء الإدريسيMohamed ABOUELALA EL IDRISSI محمد أبو العلاء الإدريسي • 1st • 1stPharm.D ; Ms in Management of Healthcare OrganizationsPharm.D ; Ms in Management of Healthcare Organizations4d • Edited • 4 days ago

    The palestinian families didn’t lose faith in humanity, even if the entire system built by humanity failed them…

    They are still hoping for a miracle, not realising they are the miracle…

    After decades of injustice, persecution, dispossession, displacement and dehumanizing, and after more than a year of public executions, deliberate slaughtering and mass murdering…

    They keep calling us, trying to remind us that they are fellow human beings too, just like me and you, just like your friendly neighbour, just like your smart co-worker, just like your son’s/daughter’s best friend… They deserve to live too…

    From the 2.2 million story of suffering, a family with young children, all under the age of 5, is in desperate need of a place to stay, of a way to secure food, clothes, basic necessities… They are in desperate need of a lifeline…

    They have been living on the roof of a building without a tent or shelter for over a month. At night, they sleep on the roof, and during the day, they take refuge in the building’s stairwell, constantly afraid of being bombed by a drone, or targeted by a sniper…

    Please do not let empathy die as well… Do something to preserve the lifeline…

    Reply

  12. “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”✨

    ― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

    Reply

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