Cambridge’s Centre for Palestine studies is pushing for formal recognition by the University of Cambridge, Varsity has learned.

This comes after the Chancellor, Lord Chris Smith, voiced his support for the introduction of Palestine studies as a standalone academic discipline at the University during a panel discussion event at the Cambridge Union last Tuesday (24/03).

At the event, the Chancellor said that the University “should engage actively and academically with Palestine studies,” urging “everyone with an interest in the creation of a proper programme of Palestine studies in Cambridge to work together”. The Chancellor claimed that “there have been some initial moves in the History Faculty” to introduce Palestine studies.

The Chancellor emphasised that these were his personal views, and should not be interpreted as “committing the University to anything”. Lord Smith, elected Chancellor in July, has a mostly ceremonial role with no executive power, although he advises senior Cambridge officials and acts as an ambassador for the University.

The panel, ‘Why Palestine Studies at Cambridge? ‘, was organised jointly by the Cambridge Centre for Palestine Studies (CCPS) and the Cambridge Union. The CCPS’ academic director Professor Stefan Sperl, and founding director, Dr Makram Khoury-Machool, also spoke.

Sperl, who is an academic at SOAS, argued that it is “more necessary than ever that educational institutions set time and resources aside” to introduce Palestine studies as a discipline. He argued that Israel studies is widely established, while Palestine studies is marginalised.

He said that the study of Palestine is crucial to understand “how Palestine could have become the scene of such injustice […] and what could be done to alleviate it”. He continued: “Israel now controls the entirety of Palestine […] permanently institutionalising the inferior legal status of some 8 million Palestinian citizens”.

Khoury-Machool called the panel a “significant event” where “Palestine studies, for the first time, will be discussed and debated academically”. He stated that the CCPS’ work and the participation of several Cambridge college masters in the Centre over the years is “not part of a political process”.

Rowan Williams, the first patron of CCPS, former Archbishop of Canterbury, and ex-master of Magdalene College, also spoke at the event.

Academics at the CCPS, which was set up in 2015, have been pushing for formal recognition by the University. Professor Sperl told Varsity that “CCPS is certainly ready to make an active contribution to university teaching. It has developed twelve teaching modules covering various disciplines at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.” Endorsement by the Chancellor and former Archbishop of Canterbury had, he felt, raised the profile of the centre, adding fuel to its ambitions for formal recognition.

He explained that there have been a number of other academic centres that began life outside of the University, and were later incorporated into it. He argued that formal recognition would provide the centre with the resources needed to “foster empathy, historical understanding, and nuanced dialogue” and “contribute to decolonizing curricula”.

He pointed to historical connections between the University and Palestine – with Lord Balfour, whose 1917 Balfour Declaration indirectly led to the eventual establishment of the state of Israel, having been Chancellor of the University from 1919 to 1930.

Two UK Universities currently have dedicated Palestine centres – the University of Exeter and SOAS. Exeter’s centre, established in 2009, aims to establish a scholarship fund, particularly for students from Gaza and the West Bank.

Centres like Exeter’s proceed from the belief that the field of Palestine studies is underdeveloped, with Palestinian voices and historiography underrepresented in research on the region. The director of Exeter’s MA in Palestine Studies, Dr Nadia Naser-Najjab, explained: “researcher interest in Palestine has grown significantly, not only in response to the current events in Gaza […] but well before that.”

Palestine studies, she argued, placed post-colonial theory and ethnographic methods at the heart of research, in order to “unsettle colonial power, inequality, racism, and neoliberalism”. She linked its increasing prominence to pro-Palestine protest and activism.

Academic literature following the outbreak of war in Gaza has called for the discipline to adopt activist solidarity with Palestinian liberation, while the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine has linked universities to the production of “the political ideology underpinning the colonization of Palestinian land”.

At the same time, the academic study of Palestine has become embroiled in political contention over issues of protest and antisemitism on university campuses. Last year, Columbia University ended the independence of its department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies, the home of the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said. The Union panel event and resulting campaign drew criticism, including from the Jewish Chronicle and Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott.

Cambridge academic Dr James Sunderland, who studies interactions between different faith communities in Israel as part of the Woolf Institute, welcomed the push towards increasing the role of Palestine studies. He told Varsity that he did not see any animosity between Hebrew-speaking academics like him and the CCPS, welcoming dialogue between the two. He was positive about moves to spotlight Palestinian perspectives in his field of research.