UMinho’s teachers repudiated the Israeli ambassador in Guimarães

Cerca of 70 professors, researchers and workers of the University of Minho (UMinho) sign a manifesto, today released, of repudiation for the reception of the ambassador of Israel in Portugal in the Chamber of Guimarães, assuming “perplexity” before the initiative.

“ A group of teachers, researchers and non-teachers and non-researchers from the University of Minho, linked to the political, social and cultural life of the Municipality of Guimarães, signed a manifesto of repudiation for the reception of the Ambassador of Israel in Portugal, Oren Rozenblat, by the Mayor of Guimarães, Ricardo Araújo, on 14 September”, reads the manifesto, sent to the agency Lusa.

At the reception, the municipality explained that the meeting allowed exploring new possibilities for collaboration in strategic areas for the development of the territory, such as innovation, technology, civil protection, the qualification of human resources and the attraction of investment.

“ Later, in response to the civil dispute that this raised, the mayor responded, invoking the normality of diplomatic relations and rejecting the ambassador's reception to represent a position on that country's international policy. In our view, however, the fact is very serious because it objectively whitens a genocide of terrible dimensions that continues daily in Palestine,” says the signatories.

A month later, these 66 elements of UMinho’s academic community, based in Braga and with a pole in Guimarães, “manifestinate perplexity” before the initiative and its objectives.

“ They consider that, given the seriousness of the situation in Palestine, this meeting cannot be understood as a simple act of diplomatic normality, contributing, on the contrary, to the normalization of the action of the State of Israel and to the laundering of the serious violations of human rights denounced in the manifesto ", they support the subscribers.

The signatories recall that “Israel’s role as the occupying power of Palestine is recognized by the international community, its multilateral bodies to ordinary citizens, as deeply criminal and liable to condemnation in justice”.

“Mr. Oren Rozenblat, received so freely in the Chamber of Guimarães, is the representative of this crime in our country. And it is not by chance that he has assumed, on numerous occasions, with a squeamish and insolent arrogance, the defense of the heinous acts committed by the government, the military and the settlers. Moreover, it usually adds unacceptable threats and comments on those who denounce the genocide in progress in our country,” the manifesto said.

The signatories say they do not believe that the mayor of Guimarães “agrees with the government of the Zionist state in which Israel will have acquired a superior and absolutely unlimited right to defend itself, thus justifying the killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, as inevitably children are, and classifying them as collateral damage.”.

“ But are you aware that your gesture, even if reduced to a mere formal act, only contributes to obliterating such a situation? Do you not understand that maintaining a ‘business as usual’ attitude means heeding this level of violence as something acceptable that, whether we like it or not, we will take forward in our mutual interests? Do you really think that genocide can be erased by a condescending handshake?”, they question.

The reception of the mayor of Guimarães, Ricardo Araújo (PSD/CDS-PP), to the Israeli ambassador in Portugal also provoked political questioning in the municipality, with PS, BE, Livre and CDU questioning the strategy followed by the municipality.

Also composer César Viana left the artistic direction of the Guimarães Festival of Religious Music, motivated by the “deep disagreement with the institutional and commercial approach” between this municipality and Israel, in the current context of the situation in Gaza.