Joe Raad
Free Palestine

Free Palestine = End the Israeli genocide happening now to the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, a.k.a., the world's largest open-air prison.

Free Palestine = End the Israeli apartheid/occupation that's been robbing Palestinians their basic human rights for more than 75 years.

Free Palestine does NOT mean being pro-Hamas or anti-semitic.

It is extremely important to remember three facts today: 1/ the war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed by Hamas on October 7 against Israeli civilians can never justify the genocide of Palestinians, 2/ this is NOT a conflict between two sides, but this is an Israeli occupation that is illegal under international law, referred to as apartheid by multiple human rights organisation (see report of Amnesty International), 3/ the violence cycle that we are witnessing did not start on October 7 (see the human cost of Israel's occupation from 2008 to 2020 according to the UN)

What I believe should/can be done now? 1/ an immediate ceasefire on all fronts, 2/ a stop to Gaza's blockade, 3/ the release of all hostages, 4/ start of a new peace process to end apartheid/occupation and give Palestinians equal rights. In my opinion, a sustainable and fair peace process can only be reached by the UN or a 'neutral' broker that is capable of pressuring the oppressor.

Note: if this statement on my personal website bothers you in a similar degree to actually witnessing a population of 2.3 million Palestinians being exterminated in Gaza in 2023, then I cannot help you (not sure that anyone can...). Otherwise, feel free to reach out to me if you have any issues with my statement. Also don't hesitate to discuss this topic with me when we meet.

Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming, these are acts of pure terror, and we have to call it as such - Ursula von der Leyen (on October 19, 2022 in the EU parliament).

Joe Raad

Associate Professor of Computer Science

at the University of Paris-Saclay

I'm an Associate Professor (Maître de Conférences) of Computer Science at the University of Paris-Saclay since September 2021. I conduct my research in the LaHDAK team of the LISN research institute and continuously collaborate with the KRR group at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

My research is focused around the field of Knowledge Representation & Reasoning on the Web, which is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, I develop techniques to refine large Knowledge Graphs, that are used in many applications such as Siri and Google search, by correcting or completing the facts in these graphs. I am also interested in all questions related to managing the identity of entities in the Web of Data.

My teaching is based at the IUT of Orsay, where I also co-manage the responsibility of international relations. My courses are mainly on semantic web, databases and programming. I'm also responsible of the Fundamentals of Data structures and Data Analysis course in the new AIDAMS bachelor at CentraleSupélec and give some lectures at the Masters 2 Data Science at the faculty.

I started my career studying software engineering at the Antonine University in Beirut. Then I got my Master of Research degree in Computer Science from the University of Burgundy in Dijon, before starting a 3-year PhD program at my current university on Identity Management in Knowledge Graphs. Right before landing back here, I got a valuable experience in my 3-year postdoc at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where I also had the opportunity to be part of the multi-disciplinary dataLegend team, working on the development of the Dutch Digital Humanities infrastructure in the CLARIAH project.