Pro-Palestinian activists protest against a Zionist lecture at the Federal University of Ceará (Brazil)
A Zionist event at the Federal University of Ceará was rejected by activists of the Palestinian cause on 30 October, in an action by students with banners supporting the struggle of the Palestinian people and paying homage to leaders of the armed struggle for liberation such as Yahya Sinwar. Michel Gherman (a Zionist associated with the Brazil-Israel Institute and a professor at UFRJ) was one of those invited to represent Zionism, falsely called ‘left-wing Zionism’.
The event was entitled ‘Between barbarism and messianism: perspectives for the next day in the current crisis of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict’. The aim was to propagate the idea that one could criticise the genocide, but advocate for the existence of the State of Israel and a ‘moderate Zionism’. The event was also marked by lies and falsifications against the Palestinian National Resistance.
Just as these reactionary ideas were being defended, pro-Palestinian students flooded the assembly with Palestinian flags, a picture of commander Yahya Sinwar, a white banner painted with pro-Palestinian slogans signed by the International Antiimperialist League (AIL) and a poster of the great Indian democrat G.N. Saibaba, murdered by the Indian state after 10 years in prison.
‘Youth from Yemen and Palestine, your struggle continues in Latin America’ and ’We are students, we are not pacifists! Long live the anti-imperialist struggle’ were the shouts that echoed around the hall as the students walked in an orderly fashion to the front of the hall.
‘We’re here to repudiate Zionism. For us, there is no such thing as left-wing Zionism, just as there was no such thing as left-wing Nazism,’ said one activist. ‘Zionism is a supremacist ideology of destruction and barbarism of hundreds of thousands of people not only in Palestine, but throughout the Middle East.’
The intervention, organised by the Ceará Front in Support of Palestinian Resistance, the Carcará Student Collective and the UJC-RR, lasted around 30 minutes. ‘It’s not possible for the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). It’s not possible that at a time when Zionism is committing genocide, barbarism, the UFC is colluding with it.’
After the event, in a conversation with AND, an activist questioned that: ‘How can they claim to be against genocide when they are linked to a wing of a state founded on genocide and apartheid? We don’t dialogue with Zionism, just as we don’t dialogue with Nazism, full stop!’
The Zionist listeners tried to silence the demonstrators with shouts, some of which were shrill and unintelligible, but the pro-Palestinian intervention continued until the end. The students also denounced the links between the so-called ‘left-wing’ Zionists and NGOs and institutions linked to the Nazi state, such as the Brazil-Israel Institute, the NGO Stand With Us, and the NGO Standing Together.
The demonstration has already attracted support from a progressive part of the academic community. The Collegiate of Philosophy Course Teachers at the State University of Ceará sent a note to the UFC rector in support of the demonstration. ‘[We express] solidarity with the students who interrupted the lecture last night by a representative of a supremacist ideology, Mr Michel Gherman,’ the note says.
News source: anovademocracia.com.br
