Roma Tre University withdraws its venue and logo from a debate with Ilan Pappé

A debate featuring the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, part of the three-day meeting "Europe and the Middle East: Beyond Identitarianisms" and scheduled for Monday 16 February 2015 at the University of Roma Tre, was stripped of its venue only days beforehand. The university denied the organisers use of its Centre for Italian-French Studies, withdrew its logo from the event and removed the announcement from its website. Pappé, who teaches at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, is known for his work documenting the expulsion of some 800,000 Palestinians and the destruction of more than 500 villages in 1948.

The university first cited "procedural errors". Rector Mario Panizza played the matter down, and the press office maintained that the university had not refused to host the event, since an alternative room had been offered. The organisers turned it down, describing it as an unsuitable, poorly equipped space used for dance performances, and argued that removing the university's logo and deleting the event from its website amounted to delegitimising the debate. The pro-Israel website Informazione Corretta presented the outcome as a success, thanking "friends in Rome" and citing objections to the venue's proximity to the city's Jewish quarter.

Pappé accused the university of giving in to intimidation and contrasted its conduct with Europe's defence of free speech after the Charlie Hebdo attacks: mocking the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons was upheld as free expression, he said, while an open academic discussion of Palestinian suffering was treated as incitement. He added that technical pretexts tend to be invoked because no institution can openly admit to refusing a debate on Palestine. The meeting went ahead on 16 February at the Sala Accademia of the Centro Congressi Frentani in Rome, before a standing-room-only audience that also filled an overflow room. The SOAS anthropologist Ruba Salih was among the participants.

The organisers launched an open letter, "A Call for Academic Freedom", signed by Pappé, accusing the university of failing in its duty to foster debate and critical thinking, and denouncing a double standard in the application of freedom of expression whenever Israel and Palestine are concerned. The letter called on academic communities worldwide to oppose the selective use of the principles of free speech and academic freedom, and quickly gathered more than a hundred signatures from academics in several countries.