Hamas welcomes Italian academics' call for BDS

[oberliner]

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Hamas movement hailed on Saturday the announcement that academics from 50 Italians universities had signed a petition calling to boycott Israeli universities and research institutes.

According to prominent Italian publication L’Espresso, more than 160 Italian academics came out in support of the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign.

The petition, reportedly the first large-scale BDS effort from Italian academia, said it was “a response to the known and well-documented complicity of Israeli academic institutions with Israeli state violence and the total lack of serious condemnation on their part since the foundation of the State of Israel.”

The BDS campaign specifically targeted Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology in Haifa, for its prominent role in the Israeli military-industrial complex, and called on Italian universities to severe ties with the institution.

http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=770038

Haifa is in Israel, incidentally, not the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

[shira]

1. Of course Hamas welcomes it. BDS supports Hamas' goals in every way.

1-state Palestinian majority.
Full right-of-return.
End of Jewish state.
Hamas ruling Jews.

What could go wrong?

[6chars]

2. For laughs, I checked out these great Italian scientists

https://stoptechnionitalia.wordpress.com/firmatari/

Just the first four on the list:
A journalist (non-academic) who is pro-Islamist
A historian doing her post-doc
A research associate in a migration policy center "with a PhD in political anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies"
A Lecturer in Political Science at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society

I would take one Israeli chemistry undergrad for the lot of them.

[elljay]

3. Tunnels

And, of course, this would be the same Hamas whose new tunnel into Israel collapsed this week, killing seven workers and which announced that it was building other attack tunnels? I presume that all of the concrete and building supplies used in building the attack tunnel were not at all needed to build housing for the tens of thousands who are homeless. Hamas certainly has the best interests of the Palestinians in mind, doesn't it?