GDI Lecture: The War on Gaza: Historical Context and Future Possibilities
| Dates: | 23 April 2025 |
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| Times: | 16:30 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Current University students, General public |
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Israeli and Western officials deal with events of October 7 as an isolated incident of violence and as animosity against Jews. Contextualising events provides a different interpretation. It is not to justify what happed, rather to understand and assess these events in wider political context, with specific reference to escalating settler attacks in the West Bank and Israel’s close surveillance of Palestinians in Israel.
Placing contemporary and ongoing events in historical context requires us to refer back to a long and deeply inhuman history of violence, dispossession and colonisation. The concept of transfer has been inscribed in Zionist ideology from an early stage of the project. There are different tools and tactics used to achieve these goals, including waging a genocidal war, as with the recent case of Gaza. On 26 January 2024, therefore, the ICJ found that Israeli is plausibly committing a genocide and should take measure to prevent it. As Israel continued to breach the genocide convention by blocking humanitarian aid that spread famine and starvation, the ICJ order Israel to take further measures to prevent genocide on 6 March 2024.
Palestinians, however, are not losing hope. They insist to resist and steadfast. Supported by international solidarity groups, they are demanding justice and freedom.
Dr Nadia Naser-Najjab is senior lecturer in Palestine Studies and the Program Director of the MA Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter.
This lecture has been organised in collaboration with GDI Students for Palestine.
Travel and Contact Information
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Theatre A
Simon Building
Manchester
