Palestine and the Western Academe

The ongoing devastation in Gaza and other parts of Palestine, alongside the systematic destruction of Palestinian universities, has coincided with intensified censorship and repression within Western academic institutions. These developments reveal the distinctive position that Zionism and its defense has held for decades within Western imperial structures, creating patterns of epistemic injustice.

Palestine and the Western Academe emerges from a collective sense of political and intellectual urgency in response to mounting repression against scholars and students working on and studying Palestine. While attacks on academic freedom and freedom of speech in Western academia have intensified, they have been met with new forms of resistance and disobedience, bolstered by coalitional anti-racist and anti-capitalist solidarities extending from Palestine globally.

This edited volume brings together significant contributions from scholars and students offering fresh approaches to the epistemic and political struggles surrounding Palestine. It demonstrates the timely and enduring relevance of the Palestinian question to international academic spaces and is essential reading for academics, researchers and students interested in Middle Eastern Studies, Political Science, International Relations, Critical Theory, Decolonial Studies, and Academic Freedom discourse.

Most of the chapters in this book were originally published in Middle East Critique. This edition comes with several new chapters and an updated introduction, offering fresh perspectives and expanded analysis on these urgent and evolving issues.