Foad Izadi, Saeid Zibakalam and Muhammad Legenhausen were among a long list of university lecturers who rebuked in a statement the Israeli crimes and atrocities in Gaza over the past 50 days.
“The declared goal of the illegitimate Zionist regime from the recent barbaric and brutal attacks on homes, mosques, hospitals, and schools in Gaza is the genocide and extinction of the indigenous population of Palestine, including the displacement of these people from their ancestral land,” the statement said.
The academics also called the Western governments “partners” in Israel’s genocidal war against the besieged territory.
“The so-called democratic Western countries are in fact partners in crime through the military, political, and economic aid they provide to this regime, which, in the plain sight of the entire world, has indiscriminately dropped thousands of tons of illegal bombs on the defenseless children, women, and people of Palestine and which continues to commit these heinous and inhumane acts against humanity,” they noted.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas conducted Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed nearly 15,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and left vast swathes of the coastal sliver in ruins.
The illegal entity has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
The full text of the statement is as follows:
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, Most Merciful
Now that the patience of the oppressed Palestinian people, after seventy-five years of miserable life and gradual death under the shadow of occupation, humiliation, exile, terror, torture, and massacre by the usurping Zionist regime has come to an end, and now that they have risen to achieve a dignified and humane life, it is the duty of every noble, open-minded, and free human being to base his judgment and actions in this regard on ethical and human principles. Among the most important of these principles is the principle of justice for all, and the necessity of fighting against oppression and defending the oppressed in every corner of the world.
The declared goal of the illegitimate Zionist regime from the recent barbaric and brutal attacks on homes, mosques, hospitals, and schools in Gaza is the genocide and extinction of the indigenous population of Palestine, including the displacement of these people from their ancestral land. The so-called democratic Western countries are in fact partners in crime through the military, political, and economic aid they provide to this regime, which, in the plain sight of the entire world, has indiscriminately dropped thousands of tons of illegal bombs on the defenseless children, women, and people of Palestine and which continues to commit these heinous and inhumane acts against humanity. If dropping bombs with an explosive power three times that of the atomic bomb on ordinary people in a narrow strip of land that is just 360 square kilometers, killing more than twelve thousand people, and injuring and maiming more than thirty thousand people, all in just forty days, is not genocide, then what is?
The issuing of declarations and the holding of protests of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide in support of the oppressed people of Palestine shows that fortunately there are still many people with a strong sense of justice who seek the truth, despite the spread of propaganda and lies. However, it is unfortunate to see some self-proclaimed intellectuals, who have sold their conscience for money, supporting the oppressors under the pretense of human rights. Here, a question arises: Are human rights, democratic principles, human dignity, and fundamental freedoms reserved solely for a specific group, an illegitimate entity called Israel? Should not the original inhabitants of Palestine also have the right to freedom, physical safety, and protection against the racist attacks of the Zionists?
The statement issued by Nicole Deitelhoff, Rainer Forst, Klaus Günther, and Jürgen Habermas in support of the Zionist child-killing regime is a clear reflection of the materialistic thinking of the West that presents itself in the guise of an academic theorizing of the modern humanities, and under the slogans of intellectuality and humanitarianism, theorizes and validates the brutal acts of the enemies of humanity. This statement adds another disgraceful stain to the face of the sick Western free-thinking and removes yet another veil of deception and deceit from the horrific reality of secularism. These individuals and their like-minded peers must answer for their distortion of realities, their spread of racism and hatred, and their double standards in the court of human conscience.