Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Sparrows for Palestine @sparrows4palestine.bsky.social · 5h

🐦🔎 Quick answer: Deep. Very deep:
substack.com/home/post/p-...

2 3 5

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 1d

The University of Toronto has made a consistent point of surveilling and disciplining faculty members critical of Israel's genocide in Gaza.

When you read this, it becomes very clear why that is.

Sparrows for Palestine @sparrows4palestine.bsky.social · 1d

How deep do UofT's partnerships with Israeli institutions run?
Quick answer: Very, very deep.
sparrows4palestine.substack.com/p/how-deep-d...

How embedded within UofT have partnerships with Israeli institutions become?

Quick answer: Very, very much.

sparrows4palestine.substack.com

2 17 40

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 16h

This is so significant: a new comprehensive report detailing the myriad modalities of Canadian university complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

static1.squarespace.com/static/68bf2...

Palestine at Canadian Universities: How institutional complicity in colonial genocide is maintained

4 56 110

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 1d

Sharing an important resource on APR, Islamophobia, and Israeli partnerships on Canadian University campuses -by the Expert Task Force report on genocide complicity and repression of Palestine solidarity at universities across Canada. The report is available at www.institutionalcomplicity.ca.

Palestine at Canadian Universities

www.institutionalcomplicity.ca

2 4

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Wunpini F. Mohammed, PhD @wunpini.bsky.social · 1d

How deep do UofT's partnerships with Israeli institutions run?

Quick answer: Very, very deep.
sparrows4palestine.substack.com/p/how-deep-d...

How embedded within UofT have partnerships with Israeli institutions become?

Quick answer: Very, very much.

sparrows4palestine.substack.com

4 7

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 1d

UofT has not funded or supported Palestinian scholars-at-risk (like they did for Ukranians feeling Russia). The data suggests that, rather than divesting or cutting ties with Israeli institutions, UofT is hardening its position and increasing collaborations with Israel [3/3]

2 2

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 1d

Sparrows for Palestine provides evidence for a deepening of partnerships between UofT and Israeli universities. And how UofT intends to increase work permit applications for citizens of Israel. Meanwhile UofT has not released a statement on the war crimes perpetrated by Israel in Palestine [2/3]

1 1 3

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 1d

Rather than limiting or cutting ties with Israeli institutions (which play an important role in providing logistics, manpower, and research to support the genocide) UofT has intensified connections to and collaborations with Israel. See "Sparrows for Palestine" substack.com/home/post/p-... [1/3]

How embedded within UofT have partnerships with Israeli institutions become?

Quick answer: Very, very much.

substack.com

1 5 10

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 7d

As Alatas writes bebalisma "does not result from absence of knowledge of the subject" but from colonialism. As a result the fool "cannot awaken resistance against injustice." So, the question is: who amongst us has been exhibiting bebalisma these past 2 years of a genocide? 5/

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 7d

Alatas writes that it is often in times of crisis that bebalisma is exposed. Education has less to do with this trait of bebalisma (since everyone has the opportunity to learn) and more with the inability of the educated to make use of this opportunity (to learn) 4/

1

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 7d

Alatas writes"Bebalisma is a parasite of the mind." It "makes educated persons blind at some points in their thinking... those whose minds are dominated by some of all of the traits of bebalisma to the extent that they cannot function to the level required by the demand of the situation" 3/

1

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 7d

Bebalisma" allows public commentators, academics, and intellectuals to be hasty in generalising. It has no respect for logic and evidence or capacity for a contextual appraisal of a problem, and arguments are marked by a lack of refinement. When a bebalian writes they are insensitive to facts 2/

1

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · 7d

In his book "Intellectuals in Developing Societies" Syed Alatas writes about "bebalisma." Derived from the Malay language-"bebal" in Malay means stupid, indolent, stubborn-the concept is meant to convey an attitude of wilful ignorance that coexists with different and diverse ideologies 1/

1

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · Sep 15

📖😍🐍 I am absolutely thrilled to announce that my edited volume "The Nile Delta: Histories from Antiquity to the Modern Period" is now available in paperback AND at a 20% discount on CUP's website! 🎊

6 24

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · Sep 15

🌆🌊🏦💥❤️‍🩹 The official poster for "Cities on the Edge: Documenting, Preserving & Teaching Endangered Urban Heritage in Egypt, Sudan and Palestine" workshop is out!
Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at AUC Tahrir + on zoom
rsvp: everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/s...

2 4

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Nisrin Elamin @nisrinelamin.bsky.social · Jul 27

The Arab countries neighbouring or close to Palestine and Sudan have been one of the biggest disappointments in the starvation and genocidal violence we are witnessing. May all their regimes fall and may their people gain both courage and liberation for all.

2 42 110

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Nisrin Elamin @nisrinelamin.bsky.social · Aug 1

I witnessed a Sudanese woman being policed by a non-Sudanese academic for using the phrase "world's largest humanitarian crisis" to describe the situation in Sudan, critiquing the term crisis and it was such a misplaced critique. Reserve that kind of language policing (1/2)

1 11 50

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Nisrin Elamin @nisrinelamin.bsky.social · Aug 7

Using anti-imperialist, Decolonial language does not make someone’s analysis anti-imperialist and anti-colonial. Reactionary propaganda can dangerously be cloaked in such language and I’m not talking about the US context here.

1 20 57

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Nisrin Elamin @nisrinelamin.bsky.social · Aug 7

I recommend reading this report by Dr. Suliman Baldo @SulimanBaldo and Ahmed Soliman on gold and the war in Sudan. It demonstrates that most of the gold extracted from Sudan is ending up in the UAE, including gold mined in SAF controlled areas.

www.chathamhouse.org/sites/defaul...

Map of gold exports from RSF and SAF controlled areas out of the country (primarily to the UAE).

1 37 49

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · Jul 16

This article argues why Canadian universities should be included in Albanese’s report. UofTs Anthropology department implicated due to connections to “Archaeology of Israel Trust”, which is "set up to make a “significant contribution to the archaeology of Israel""
www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Canadian universities too should be in Francesca Albanese’s report

Canadian university administrators should remember that they too can be held accountable for genocide complicity.

www.aljazeera.com

2

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · Jun 18

Let's talk a little bit about the Weizmann Institute's deep entanglement with Zionism and, therefore, Land theft and genocide, shall we? 1/ 🧵

1 11 22

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · Jun 18

In a review of Maya Wind's book "Towers of Ivory and Steel", Marcy Newman reminds us that "the Technion (1925) and the Weizmann Institute (1934) were “established to advance the scientific and technological development of Israel”" 2/ mondoweiss.net/2024/03/how-...

How Israeli universities are an arm of settler colonialism

Maya Wind’s new book meticulously demonstrates how Israeli academic institutions were created to serve the Zionist colonization of Palestine. They continue to do so to this day while fueling Israel’s ...

mondoweiss.net

1 2 8

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · Jun 18

The delegation visited Hebrew U, Tel Aviv U, & Weizmann Institute (which host a center funded by Schwartz & Reisman) + “leaders of the 🇮🇱 high tech industry”. Numerous, enthusiastic tweets from that period document this trip, which marked a period of snowballing ties btw 🇮🇱 institutions & UofT...10/

1 2 3

Reposted by Girish Daswani

Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · Jun 18

Partnerships with foreign universities are so essential to legitimizing Israeli Zionist institutions like Weizmann that enable apartheid & genocide that in 2016, 🇮🇱 embassy in Canada tweeted to welcome UofT dean of medicine on her partnership-seeking trip to 🇮🇱 alongside then premier Kathleen Wynne 9/

1 2 6

Girish Daswani @girishdaswani.bsky.social · Jun 18

It is important to remember that the Weizmann Institute (recently bombed) is intimately connected with the Zionist military complex, therefore land theft and genocide. I want to acknowledge that U of T has several partnerships with Weizmann University- all documented below.

Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · Jun 18

You can find 30+ pages of publicly available data re UofT's sharp rise in institutional partnerships w 🇮🇱 institutions under M.Gertler's presidency 👇. To this day, UofT reduses to sever these ties. It has also remained silent on the genocide + scholasticide in 🇵🇸 11/ docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Ties that bind

Ties that bind: Recent timeline of UofT’s relationships with Israeli Institutions 2003: The Halbert Exchange Program is established at UofT Munk School of Global Affairs “The Halbert Exchange Prog...

docs.google.com