Full list of signatories to this petition:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/j0bi4wianhui0b0/Petition%20IDF%20Advisor%20Signatures.pdf?dl=0(Signatories as of 11/10: 117 students, student organizations, faculty/staff, alumni, community members, and community organizations).
To the NYU Law Federalist Society and NYU Law Professor Ryan Goodman,
We call on the Federalist Society to rescind your invitation to Israeli Military Lieutenant-Colonel-Doctor Eran Shamir-Borer to speak at the Law School this coming Thursday; and we call on Professor Ryan Goodman to cancel your participation in the same event.
Hosting an Israeli military officer to field questions about the legality of Israeli war crimes goes beyond discussing the matter in an academic fashion to whitewashing and normalizing those who violate international law’s core tenets most brazenly.
Shamir-Borer’s supporters describe him as the legal advisor for Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli military codename for this summer’s Israeli invasion of Gaza, which killed over two-thousand Palestinians -- most of them civilians, including roughly five hundred children. Shamir-Borer’s role is to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes.
There is a virtual international consensus that Israel committed grave violations of the laws of war during its Gaza invasion. Most human rights watchdogs, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, concluded that Israel perpetrated a number of war crimes during this campaign, including deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, medical facilities, and shelters, the use of weaponry incapable of distinction in densely populated areas, generally failing to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and conducting disproportionate attacks, among other grave breaches of the Hague Regulations, Geneva Conventions and customary international law.
Shamir-Borer, who is on tour to justify Israel’s massacres at universities, has already met with considerable backlash elsewhere. His visit to Tufts University has sparked over 1200 individuals to petition that university to cancel the event. Around the country, students are standing up to a culture of impunity for Israeli atrocities.
This event would continue NYU Law’s unfortunate and irresponsible behavior in the aftermath of this summer’s tragedy. As you may know, NYU Law enthusiastically embraced the Forum on Law, Culture, and Society this August, despite Forum Director Thane Rosenbaum’s abhorrent statement that Palestinians “forfeit [their] right to be called civilians”. He based this on how some Palestinians voted in an election, echoing the rationalizations for violence against civilians used by terrorists.
Individuals who are responsible for such blatant crimes of war deserve to be heard at their trials. Shamir-Borer’s appropriate venue for this presentation is at the Hague, not at a law school under the guise of academic exchange.
Signed,
