It is the rebirth of an old companionship. Since the start of the war in Gaza, launched following the deadly attack by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the prestigious American University of Beirut (AUB) has been at the forefront in Lebanon. , university initiatives in support of the Palestinians. In doing so, the establishment on Bliss Street reconnects with its rich activist past, the time when it served as a spur to the mobilization of the Arab intelligentsia on the Palestinian question.
On June 20 and 21, AUB will host a conference, “Justice for Gaza”, intended to launch avenues for the reconstruction of the medical sector in the besieged enclave, with practitioners from the region. At the beginning of the month, Palestinian-British surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah, who spent a month and a half in the hell of Gaza at the start of the war, was received on the green campus. He was, along with Indian writer Arundhati Roy, among the three personalities decorated this year with an honorary doctorate, during the students’ graduation ceremony in the university stadium.
The doctor, whom Germany had turned away in mid-April and banned from obtaining a Schengen visa for a year (a measure against which he has since won his case), practiced for ten years, between 2011 and 2021 , at the American Hospital (AUBMC), attached to the university. “Ghassan Abu Sittah is a hero: he intervened in several conflicts in Gaza and treated war wounded from Syria and Iraq at AUBMC, said AUB president Fadlo Khuri about him. This year we wanted to highlight personalities who express empathy towards Gaza and the Palestinians and whose actions have global resonance. »
The words of Arundhati Roy, during the ceremony, did not go unnoticed in this university which receives significant American funding: denouncing the “genocide” in Gaza and “apartheid” towards the Palestinians “of which Israel is guilty”she judged that the American government seemed “being under legal occupation of Israel” and castigated the support “by arms and money” from Washington to the Hebrew state. The Indian activist was applauded.
Liberal tradition
The AUB is not, however, a den of revolutionaries. A bridge with the West, the establishment claims to have a liberal tradition. Since its creation in the 19the century, by an American Protestant missionary, it trains the elites of Lebanon and the Middle East and aims to be a place of diversity. “In the 1930s, before the Nakba [l’exode forcé des Palestiniens à la création de l’Etat d’Israël en 1948], the majority of students were Palestinian”, recalls Fadlo Khuri. The establishment, located in west Beirut in Hamra, has been a crucible of Arab nationalism.
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