On Sept. 16, an independent commission of inquiry from the UN announced its finding that Israel is committing Genocide in Gaza. They add this opinion to an overwhelming consensus of genocide scholars and most major human rights and humanitarian organizations, as Israel continues to escalate its campaign of annihilation in what remains of the territory. The UN commission chair, Navi Pillay, wrote in the New York Times “What does this mean for the international community? It means its obligations are not optional…To do nothing is not neutrality. It is complicity.”
In this context, Dartmouth President Sian Lee Beilock’s much promoted policy of “institutional restraint” and neutrality reflects only cowardice and moral bankruptcy. The obligations incurred by an ongoing genocide do not fall only on states and bodies of international law, they belong to all elements of civil society worldwide, and especially to us as institutions and citizens in the country which is the main sponsor of these atrocities. Dartmouth is not only failing to live up to its obligations, it is deepening its ties to genocide through new relationships with Israeli researchers and universities (look up “Dartmouth Kalaniyot”) while every school and university in Gaza lies in ruins. This makes a mockery of the very idea of “neutrality.”
Our obligations in the face of an ongoing genocide are clear. Cut ties to the entity committing the “crime of crimes” and apply all available diplomatic and legal means to stop the slaughter.