EASTAP statement on Palestine

The following statement is the result of a long process of deliberation among the membership of the European Association for Theatre and Performance (EASTAP) that is compelled to respond to the ongoing situation in Palestine. This includes:

● Israel’s continuous destruction of Palestinian life is rooted in over 75 years of oppression, dispossession and displacement. It has defied the ICJ’s January 2024 ruling on the ‘plausible risk of genocide’ in Gaza, with intensified violence and renewed settlements in the West Bank and it has continued after ‘ceasefire agreements’ that have been repeatedly violated.
● Scholasticide and cultural erasure are integral parts of Israel’s genocidal campaign: all universities in Gaza have now been destroyed, thousands of students and professors killed, and theatres and artists targeted by Israeli military attacks and imprisonment.
● Palestinian individual academics, artists and institutions as well as those who actively stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people are systematically silenced and censored across Europe.
● The Palestinian civil society calls for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) including the call for academics worldwide to support the boycott of Israeli academic institutions (PACBI) complicit in violating Palestinian rights guaranteed by international law, including academic freedom and the right to education.

In this context, EASTAP as a community of academics and artists joins other research organisations and individual artists in recognising and acknowledging its ethical and material obligation to:

● Support the call of Palestinian civil society for BDS and PACBI
● Actively support Palestinian academics and artists whose right to speak and, more significantly, their right to life are under attack both inside Palestine and abroad.
● Actively work within our academic and/or cultural institutions, trade unions, and other professional collectives (artistic or otherwise) to divest from and boycott institutions that are implicated in Israel’s colonial project.
● Keep voicing our solidarity towards Palestinian communities, individuals and institutions and all those affected by the ongoing violence and oppression.

Please note: Some points in this statement are derived from the statement issued by the UK’s Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA). We also wish to draw attention to the FAQs issued by TaPRA as a companion to their statement. Both the statement and the FAQs can be accessed here.