Academic boycotts of Israel
Encyclopedia
Proposals for an academic boycott of Israel have been inspired by the historic academic boycotts of South Africa
which were an attempt to pressure South Africa to end its policies of Apartheid.
Proposals for this boycott have been made by academics and organisations in the United Kingdom to boycott
Israeli universities and academics. The goal of proposed academic boycotts is to isolate Israel in order to force a change in Israel's policies towards the Palestinians which opponents claim to be discriminatory or oppressive.
The proposals have been opposed by many scholars and politicians, who describe the campaign as "profoundly unjust" and relying on what they consider to be a "false" analogy with South Africa. One critical statement has said that the boycotters apply "different standards" to Israel than other countries, that the boycott is "counterproductive and retrograde" and that the campaign is antisemitic and comparable to Nazi boycotts of Jewish shops in the 1930s.
Despite these oppositions, academic boycott initiatives have been undertaken internationally. Most recently, and in a contribution viewed as historically significant owing to comparisons between Apartheid South Africa and Israel, an academic petition supported by more than 250 academics was launched in South Africa in September 2010 with prominent supporters such as Professors Breyten Breytenbach, John Dugard, Antjie Krog, Mahmood Mamdani and Achille Mbembe. Most recently, and in a contribution viewed as historically significant owing to comparisons between Apartheid South Africa and Israel, an academic petition asking the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to end its ties with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and supported by more than 250 academics was launched in South Africa in September 2010 with prominent supporters such as Professors Breyten Breytenbach, John Dugard, Antjie Krog, Mahmood Mamdani and Achille Mbembe.[9] In March, 2011, the Senate of the University made a “landmark decision” to end that connection. While Professor Ihron Rensburg, Vice-Chancellor& Principal of the University denied that the decision amounted to an academic boycott of Israel. others have claimed it as a “a landmark moment in the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel campaign” Jewish and Israeli groups have criticised the decision.
initiated by Steven
and Hilary Rose
, professors in biology
at the Open University
and social policy at the University of Bradford
respectively, who called for a moratorium on all cultural and research links with Israel. It read:
By July 2002, the open letter had gained over 700 signatories, including those of ten Israeli academics.
In response to the open letter, Leonid Ryzhik, a senior professor in mathematics at the University of Chicago
, led a rival web-based petition that condemned the original's "unjustly righteous tone" and warned that the boycott has a "broader risk of very disruptive repercussions for a wide range of international scientific and cultural contacts". By July 2002, the counter petition has gathered almost 1,000 signatories.
, an Egypt
ian professor of translation studies at the University of Manchester
in England and a signatory of the 2002 open letter, decided in early June 2002 to remove two Israeli academics – Dr. Miriam Shlesinger of Bar-Ilan University
, a former chair of Amnesty International
, Israel; and Professor Gideon Toury of Tel Aviv University
– from the editorial boards of the journals Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts that Baker and her husband publish.
Manfred Gerstenfeld
claims that Baker offered to allow the academics to remain on the board only on condition that they leave and sever all ties with Israel. Baker claims to have never made any such statements. Her views are articulated on her web site.
Mona Baker's email to Prof Toury read:
Prof Toury replied:
In response to a barrage of negative mail, critical media attention, and a denunciation from Tony Blair
, Mona Baker told a reporter from the Daily Telegraph:
She also clarified her position on her web site where she stated that she had received a large amount of hate mail, which is "now a common tactic of the Zionist lobby" and that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians "justifies relatively extreme measures such as academic and cultural boycotts."
(AUT) voted to boycott
two Israeli universities: University of Haifa
and Bar-Ilan University
. The motions to AUT Council were prompted by the call for a boycott from nearly 60 Palestinian academics and others. The AUT Council voted to boycott Bar-Ilan because it runs courses at colleges in the West Bank
(referring to Ariel
College) and "is thus directly involved with the occupation of Palestinian territories contrary to United Nations resolutions". It boycotted Haifa because it was alleged that the university had wrongly disciplined a lecturer. The action against the lecturer was supposedly for supporting a student who wrote about attacks on Palestinians during the founding of the state of Israel. Some aspects of the student's research had been falsified (see this page) and the University denied having disciplined the lecturer. Union members claimed that Staff and students [of Israeli universities] who seek to research Israel's history in full are often "victimised".
and the Union of Jewish Students
accused the AUT of purposely holding the vote during Passover
, when many Jewish members could not be present.
The presidents of Jerusalem-based al-Quds University
and Hebrew University issued a joint statement condemning the boycott effort as unproductive towards ending the "shared tragedy" but rather could prolong it:
One of the university presidents, Sari Nusseibeh
of al-Quds University
, continued: "If we are to look at Israeli society, it is within the academic community that we've had the most progressive pro-peace views and views that have come out in favor of seeing us as equals [...] If you want to punish any sector, this is the last one to approach." He acknowledges, however, that his view is a minority one amongst Palestinian academics.
Zvi Ravner, Israel’s deputy ambassador in London, noted that "[t]he last time that Jews were boycotted in universities was in 1930s Germany."
The British National Postgraduate Committee also voted to oppose the boycott. Project officer Andre Oboler said that the boycott "runs contrary to our objective, which is to advance in the public interest the education of postgraduate students within the UK".
lecturer and Engage
founder Jon Pike – gathered enough signatures to call a special meeting on the subject. The meeting was held on 26 May 2005, at Friends Meeting House in London. Supporters of rival positions gathered on the streets outside this meeting. Pro-boycott demonstrators called for the AUT to maintain its course against what they described as ""unbelievable pressure", while anti-boycott demonstrators suggested that the decision had been influenced by anti-Semitism , and argued that the AUT's integrity was being threatened by a group of "leftwing extremists". At the meeting the AUT membership decided to cancel the boycott of both Israeli universities. Reasons cited for the decision were: the damage to academic freedom
, the hampering of dialogue and peace effort between Israelis and Palestinians
, and that boycotting Israel alone could not be justified.
(NATFHE) passed motion 198C, a call to boycott Israeli academics who did not vocally speak out against their government.
The following portions of the resolution are quoted by Brian Klug
:
The resolution was dismissed by the AUT, the union into which the NATFHE was merging into.
Overall four attempts were made to pass pro-boycott motions at the annual conferences of the University teachers, especially following its reorganisation as the University and College Union in 2008. Threatened by legal action on the one hand, and opposed by all University heads on the other, these never went beyond the declarative stage.
Brian Klug
makes this criticism of the NATFHE motion:
The Association of Jewish Sixthformers (AJ6) issued a press release expressing dismay and concern "about the affects of any boycott on Jewish and Israeli Sixthformers." Specifically, AJ6 pointed to "partnerships and exchange visits with Israeli schools and colleges may be under threat", that "Jewish students who study in Israel during their Gap Years are worried that teachers may refuse to provide them with references for these programmes."
The Anti-Defamation League
issued a statement which condemned the motion explaining:
The British government, through Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Lord Triesman, issued a statement that the motion was "counterproductive and retrograde" although the British Government recognized "the independence of the NATFHE."
Paul Mackney, the general secretary of NATFHE, was sent over 15,000 messages from boycott opponents.
Tamara Traubmann and Benjamin Joffe-Walt, reporting for the Guardian, conducted an analysis of "whether the campaigns against such boycotts are actually motivated by concerns for academic freedom, or whether they are using the universalist ideal to stifle critical discussion of Israel." They describe their findings this way:
(created by the merger of AUT and NATFHE) voted (by 158 votes to 99) on Motion 30, which called for the UCU to circulate a boycott request by Palestinian trade unions to all branches for information and discussion. It called on lecturers to "consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions." This position is considered to be anti-semitic by some Jewish organizations such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center
.
Motion 30 as amended:
In September 2007, delegates at the Liberal Democrat
conference voted to condemn the UCU's "perverse" decision. They called for University and College Union members to reject the proposal and continue to engage in "the fullest possible dialogue" with their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts.
Susan Fuhrman, President of Teachers College, Columbia University
said, saying, "As the president of an academic institution dedicated in large part to the preparation of teachers, I believe that universities and all centers of learning must be allowed to function as safe havens for freedom of discussion, debate and intellectual inquiry, standing apart from national and international politics and partisan strife. Only thus can they continue to produce scholarship that informs the policies and laws of democratic societies and stand as islands of hope in a frequently polarized world. ... Teachers College welcomes dialogue with Israeli scholars and universities and stands with Columbia University
President Lee Bollinger in expressing solidarity with them by inviting UCU to boycott us, as well."
Japanese physicist Shin-ichi Kurokawa of the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Tsukuba, Japan, wrote to the general secretary of UCU. He said the proposed boycott "clearly violates" Statute 5 of the International Council for Science
.
The link to Quinn's editorial however was not to the original on the Sott.net web site but to a republication of the editorial on the web site of former Ku Klux Klan
member and white supremacist David Duke
. Quinn claimed that no permission had been asked or given for the republication.
David Hirsh
, a lecturer in Sociology
at Goldsmiths College
and founder of Engage
, a campaign against academic boycotts of Israel
, became involved in the controversy when, in August 2008, he obtained a copy of Ms. Delich's message to the activists list and posted it on his Engage web site. Hirsh commented that the UCU was now circulating links to David Duke’s website on behalf of Delich.
Hirsh, also a University and College Union member, had been banned from the UCU activists’ email list in November 2007 for breaching rules of confidentiality.
Delich quickly clarified that she had not realised who David Duke was and stated that, while strongly against racists and anti-semites, she maintained her support for the views expressed in Quinn's editorial
On 26 August 2008, The Jerusalem Post
s London correspondent Jonny Paul wrote an editorial on the incident.
A joint open letter by a group of academics was published in The Guardian
on 16 January 2009. The letter called on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to stop its "military aggression and colonial occupation" of the Palestinian land and its "criminal use of force". Suggesting to start with a programme of |boycott, divestment and sanctions (the BDS movement).
There has been a great deal of discussion concerning the links between the calls for boycott and a growth of anti-semitism in the UK, and on British campuses in particular. While organisations such as Engage or the SPME argue that widespread anti-semitism is at the root of the problem, this has been disputed by some academics who argue that this is a self defeating argument. This was particularly the position taken by the representtaives of Israel's universities in the UK, Professor David Newman
who, while countering the attempts at academic boycott, did not see all such activity as being inherently anti-semitic. Newman, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Israel's Ben-Gurion University
, focused his activities on strengthening scientific and academic links between Israel and the UK, and was influential in creating the BIRAX research and scientiric cooperation agreement between the two countries – an agreement which was promoted by successive British Ambassadors to Israel, Tom Philips and Matthew Gould, and which has been funded, amongst others by the Pears Foundation in London.
Neither was the counter boycott campaign helped by a small number of Israeli academics who also supported the boycott. Most notable amongst these was Professor Neve Gordon
, a professor of Political Science at Ben-Gurion University, who published a column in the Los Angeles Times
in the summer of 2009, supporting boycott activity against Israel for as long as the country continued with its policy of occupation. This led to demands for his dismissal by many of the university supporters and donors in the USA, and resulted in a lively debate about the limitations of academic freedom amongst Israeli academics.
At the UCU annual congress held on 27–29 May 2009, the union again passed a resolution to boycott Israeli academics and academic institutions by a large majority. Delegates stated that Israeli academics were complicit in their government's acts against Palestinians. However, the vote was immediately declared invalid as UCU attorneys repeated previous warnings that such a boycott would likely trigger legal action against the union. The union also overwhelmingly rejected a resolution urging them to examine the trend of "resignations of UCU members apparently in connection with perceptions of institutional anti-Semitism."
Tom Hickey, from the University of Brighton
, put forward one of two motions calling for lecturers to "reflect on the moral and political appropriateness of collaboration with Israeli educational institutions". Martin Ralph, from the University of Liverpool
, called for a boycott, disinvestment and a sanctions campaign against Israel. He also suggested that a new conference be held to determine how the boycott could be legally implemented.
Camilla Bassi, from Sheffield Hallam University
, opposed the boycott, stating that it would "not help anyone" and would be "part of an anti-Jewish movement." She also stated that: "It is a recipe against all Israelis when we need links between Israeli and Palestinian workers." Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Leadership Council
and joint head of Stop the Boycott, sharply criticised the boycott proposal, stating that: "Whether you are a trade unionist wanting a powerful union or whether you are a long-standing campaigner for peace, it is clear that the UCU has taken leave of its senses. There is the potential for this union to play a remarkable role at this hugely crucial time. If the UCU was a serious union representing their members they would be working to involve Israelis and Palestinians in each other's destiny."
(Israel's organization of trade unions). Tom Hickey, from the University of Brighton
, who introduced the motion, stated that the Histadrut had supported "the Israeli assault on civilians in Gaza" in January 2009, and "did not deserve the name of a trade union organization." An amendment to this motion, which sought to "form a committee which represents all views within UCU to review relations with the Histadrut" and report back in a year, was defeated. The UCU's boycott motion invoked a "call from the Palestinian Boycott National Committee” for “an isolation of Israel while it continues to act in breach of international law" and calls to "campaign actively" against Israel’s trade agreement with the European Union.
Another motion passed at the conference committed the UCU to starting the investigatory process associated with imposing a boycott on the Ariel University Center of Samaria.
At the same conference, UCU members voted to disassociate itself from the EU working definition of anti-Semitism on the grounds that the definition of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights stifles debate and is used to deflect criticism of Israel.
The union's abrogation was sharply criticised by leaders of Jewish organisations in the UK and Israel, including Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews
(the Board); Paul Usiskin, chairman of Peace Now UK; Oliver Worth, chairman of the World Union of Jewish Students
; Dan Sheldon, Union of Jewish Students
; and Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, who said: "After this weekend's events, I believe the UCU is institutionally racist."
The Jewish Leadership Council
(JLC) wrote to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to express its concern, while a letter of protest was sent to UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt
from Mick Davis (chair of trustees of the JLC), Gerald M. Ronson (trustee of the JLC and chairman of the Community Security Trust
(CST)), Vivian Wineman (president of the Board and chair of the Council of Membership of the JLC) and Sir Trevor Chinn CVO (vice-president of the JLC). Wineman, also wrote to university vice chancellors asking them to consider whether maintaining a normal relationship with UCU was compatible with their requirement to "eliminate discrimination and foster good relations" with minorities. Representatives of the JLC, the Board and the Community Security Trust appealed to government ministers David Willetts and Eric Pickles to support a formal EHRC investigation into the decision, and Ariel Hessayon, a lecturer at Goldsmiths University, resigned from the UCU in protest at the union's abrogation of the EU definition.
Sally Hunt responded that the UCU remained opposed to antisemitism and asked for a meeting with Jewish leaders to help write an "acceptable" definition of anti-Jewish prejudice. The union and its branches have held a number of events to commemorate Jewish suffering during WWII.
On 30 June 2011, Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles
called on the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the UCU, citing the May antisemitism resolution. In July 2011, UCU was given notice of the intent of a Jewish UCU member to sue the union for breach of the Equality Act 2010. The case was filed under the Equality Act with the Employment Tribunal
in September 2011, and is expected to be heard in the summer of 2012.
Larry Summers has called Israel-boycott efforts "anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.”
, a group of American professors has joined the boycott call:
The group name is "U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel."
15 academics, mostly based in California, founded the campaign mostly but according to David Lloyd
,a professor of Irish literature and post-colonial studies at USC, it is "currently expanding to create a network that embraces the United States as a whole."
Other American academics that have advocated for boycotts against Israel include Andrew Ross
and Simona Sawhney.
CPF outlined its demands to a university representative during a 5 March demonstration. The prior day, it held a panel discussion featuring multiple Columbia faculty members who have been supportive of the group. Gil Anidjar, a religion professor, advocated boycott as an appropriate "exercise of freedom," while anthropology professor Brinkley Messick indicated that Columbia President Lee Bollinger
had agreed to meet with the faculty to discuss the demands for divestment. One CPF member described the group's goals in a 3 March article for Columbia's newspaper, stating that "by divesting from companies that do business with the occupation, we can put global pressure on the Israeli government to end it."
, professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia, who is on the advisory board of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel. Dabashi supports boycott efforts targeting both Israeli individuals and institutions:
in Amherst, MA, had become the first of any college or university in the U.S. to particitape in the divestment campaign campaign to divest
In August 2010 false rumors circulate that Harvard University
had divested from Israel.
(AFT) reiterated its opposition to any academic boycott of Israel (or any other country) but added that discussion of the Israel-Palestinian conflict should be encouraged. AFT President Randi Weingarten
stated that:
brought forward a proposal to ban Israeli academics from teaching at Ontario Universities. CUPE-Ontario leader Sid Ryan
stated, "we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general." Ryan subsequently said, "Academic freedom goes both ways. What we are saying is if they want to remain silent and be complicit in these kinds of actions, why should they enjoy the freedom to come and teach in other countries like Canada?" CUPE's national president, Paul Moist, issued a statement declaring his opposition to the motion and saying, "I will be using my influence in any debates on such a resolution to oppose its adoption."
Shortly after its original statement, CUPE removed its call to boycott individual academics from its website and replaced it with statement that called instead for a boycott "aimed at academic institutions and the institutional connections that exist between universities here and those in Israel." Tyler Shipley
, spokesperson for CUPE local 3903 at York University
, told the Toronto Star
that his group will begin to advocate for York to sever financial ties to Israel.
Some observers have questioned what practical effect any CUPE resolution will have since the 20,000 university workers represented by CUPE Ontario include campus staff but almost no full-time faculty.
’s Student Association (UWSSA) formally affiliated to the “Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel” in February 2009, following a request from PACBI. The President of the UWSSA, Jacob Carswell-Doherty, later stated that “We have no interest in hearing the Israeli viewpoint. Our agenda is to persuade the university administration to implement the terms of the boycott.”
A prominent Palestinian academic, president of Al-Quds University
, Sari Nusseibeh
, has argued against academic boycotts of Israel, telling Associated Press
"If we are to look at Israeli society, it is within the academic community that we've had the most progressive pro-peace views and views that have come out in favor of seeing us as equals... If you want to punish any sector, this is the last one to approach." He acknowledges, however, that his view is a minority one amongst Palestinian academics.
Some invoke the comparison to claim that an academic boycott of Israel should not be controversial based on a misconception that the academic boycott of South Africa was uncontroversial and straightforward. The reality, at the time, was very different. The effort was the subject of significant criticism and contentious debate from diverse segments. Andrew Beckett writes, in the Guardian, on this frequent mistaken comparison: "In truth, boycotts are blunt weapons. Even the most apparently straightforward and justified ones, on closer inspection, have their controversies and injustices."
Others, such as Hillary and Stephen Rose in Nature, make the comparison and argue for an academic boycott of Israel based on a belief that the academic boycott of South Africa was effective in ending apartheid. George Fink responds to this claim in a letter to Nature:
In 2010, the Senate of the University of Johannesburg
recommended cutting off all links with Ben-Gurion University in Israel
because of the country's policies. The scientific agreement, which focused on cooperation in water research, had only been sigend in the previous year. Prior to making a final decision, the university sent a senior delegation of its faculty on a fact finding tour to Israel in January 2011.
and Alan Dershowitz
argue that despite a small number of Jews who have supported boycotts, the boycotts themselves are antisemitic, using their anti-Zionism
as a cover for "Jew hatred". They compare the boycotts to the 1222 Canterbury Council
sharply limiting Christian contact with Jews, and Nazi boycotts of Jewish shops in the 1930s, as well as Arab League
attempts to economically isolate Israel and refrain from purchasing "anything Jewish."
Harvard President Larry Summers
"blasted" the boycotts as "antisemitic":
Summers had previously argued that a proposed boycott was antisemitic "in effect, if not intent". This position was criticized by Judith Butler
, in an article entitled "No, it's not anti-semitic". Butler argues the distinction of effective anti-semitism, and intentional anti-semitism is at best controversial. "If we think that to criticise Israeli violence, or to call for economic pressure to be put on the Israeli state to change its policies, is to be ‘effectively anti-semitic’, we will fail to voice our opposition for fear of being named as part of an anti-semitic enterprise. No label could be worse for a Jew, who knows that, ethically and politically, the position with which it would be unbearable to identify is that of the anti-semite."
launched the first public campaign for academic boycott against Israel in South Africa.
On 5 September 2010, a nationwide academic petition was initiated by academics supporting a termination of a partnership agreement between the University of Johannesburg (UJ)
and BGU; a long-standing partnership dating back to apartheid era relations between the two institutions. Well-known academics such as Professors Breyten Breytenbach
, John Dugard
, Mahmood Mamdani, Antjie Krog
and Achille Mbembe
are signatories to the academic petition, which is also backed by Vice-Chancellors from four universities in South Africa.
Amidst widespread public attention, both within South Africa and internationally, the campaign to boycott BGU quickly gained momentum and within a few days more than 250 academics had signed the petition, stating:
“The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has had disastrous effects on access to education for Palestinians. While Palestinians are not able to access universities and schools, Israeli universities produce the research, technology, arguments and leaders for maintaining the occupation. BGU is no exception, by maintaining links to both the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and the arms industry BGU structurally supports and facilitates the Israeli occupation."
On 26 September 2010 Archbishop Desmond Tutu
released a letter through the Sunday Times, under the heading “Israeli ties: a chance to do the right thing”, supporting the academics. The Nobel Laureate’s position in favour of the boycott was accompanied by an appeal that: “The University of Johannesburg has a chance to do the right thing, at a time when it is unsexy.”
Former South African cabinet minister and ANC leader Ronnie Kasrils
also came out in support of the boycott call and wrote in the Guardian: “Israeli universities are not being targeted for boycott because of their ethnic or religious identity, but because of their complicity in the Israeli system of apartheid” and that "The principled position of academics in South Africa to distance themselves from institutions that support the occupation is a reflection of the advances already made in exposing that the Israeli regime is guilty of an illegal and immoral colonial project."
A fact-finding investigation conducted by the University confirmed BGU's links with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and complicity in the Israeli occupation. Accepting the recommendations of the report, the University committed itself to end any research or teaching relationship with Ben-Gurion University that has direct or indirect military links; or in instances where human rights abuses are identified. The University has stated that if BGU violates any of the conditions agreed on by Senate or UJ’s stated principles, which include “solidarity with any oppressed population”, the relationship will be terminated completely after 6 months.
Wits University vice-chancellor Loyiso Nongxa told journalists that he was not aware of "any formal links – a memorandum of understanding [MoU] – between Wits and Israeli universities". Three hours later, Wits university’s spokesperson confirmed that it "has no formal ties with any Israeli university, according to our database".
The University of Cape Town followed suit shortly afterwards stating that: "There are no institution-level partnerships with Israeli universities." The University of Pretoria, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and Stellenbosch University have since confirmed that they have no formal partnerships with institutions in Israel.
On 20 August 2009, Israeli Professor Neve Gordon
wrote in an Los Angeles Times editorial that he had decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel movement. He stated that Israel had become so right wing and 'an apartheid state' that he felt he had no choice but to support this course of action.
Dr Gordon faced intense national and international criticism. In response, the Jewish Voice for Peace organization circled a petition to "Defend academic freedom. Defend the right to talk about boycott, divestment, and sanctions."
According to the petition:
Academic boycotts of South Africa
The academic boycott of South Africa consisted of series of boycotts of South African academic institutions and scholars initiated in the 1960s, at the request of the African National Congress, with the goal of using such international pressure to force the end South Africa's system of apartheid...
which were an attempt to pressure South Africa to end its policies of Apartheid.
Proposals for this boycott have been made by academics and organisations in the United Kingdom to boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
Israeli universities and academics. The goal of proposed academic boycotts is to isolate Israel in order to force a change in Israel's policies towards the Palestinians which opponents claim to be discriminatory or oppressive.
The proposals have been opposed by many scholars and politicians, who describe the campaign as "profoundly unjust" and relying on what they consider to be a "false" analogy with South Africa. One critical statement has said that the boycotters apply "different standards" to Israel than other countries, that the boycott is "counterproductive and retrograde" and that the campaign is antisemitic and comparable to Nazi boycotts of Jewish shops in the 1930s.
Despite these oppositions, academic boycott initiatives have been undertaken internationally. Most recently, and in a contribution viewed as historically significant owing to comparisons between Apartheid South Africa and Israel, an academic petition supported by more than 250 academics was launched in South Africa in September 2010 with prominent supporters such as Professors Breyten Breytenbach, John Dugard, Antjie Krog, Mahmood Mamdani and Achille Mbembe. Most recently, and in a contribution viewed as historically significant owing to comparisons between Apartheid South Africa and Israel, an academic petition asking the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to end its ties with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and supported by more than 250 academics was launched in South Africa in September 2010 with prominent supporters such as Professors Breyten Breytenbach, John Dugard, Antjie Krog, Mahmood Mamdani and Achille Mbembe.[9] In March, 2011, the Senate of the University made a “landmark decision” to end that connection. While Professor Ihron Rensburg, Vice-Chancellor& Principal of the University denied that the decision amounted to an academic boycott of Israel. others have claimed it as a “a landmark moment in the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel campaign” Jewish and Israeli groups have criticised the decision.
Guardian open letter, 2002
The idea of an academic boycott against Israelis first emerged on 6 April 2002 in an open letter to The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
initiated by Steven
Steven Rose
Steven P. Rose is a Professor of Biology and Neurobiology at the Open University and University of London.-Life:...
and Hilary Rose
Hilary Rose (sociologist)
Hilary Rose is a prominent British feminist of sociology of science and social policy. Currently she is Visiting Research Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at the University of Bradford and Professor Emeritus of Physick, Gresham College,...
, professors in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
at the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
and social policy at the University of Bradford
University of Bradford
The University of Bradford is a British university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The University received its Royal Charter in 1966, making it the 40th University to be created in Britain, but its origins date back to the early 1800s...
respectively, who called for a moratorium on all cultural and research links with Israel. It read:
By July 2002, the open letter had gained over 700 signatories, including those of ten Israeli academics.
In response to the open letter, Leonid Ryzhik, a senior professor in mathematics at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, led a rival web-based petition that condemned the original's "unjustly righteous tone" and warned that the boycott has a "broader risk of very disruptive repercussions for a wide range of international scientific and cultural contacts". By July 2002, the counter petition has gathered almost 1,000 signatories.
Mona Baker, Miriam Shlesinger and Gideon Toury
Mona BakerMona Baker
Mona Baker is an Egyptian professor of translation studies and Director of the Centre for Translation and International Studies at the University of Manchester in England.-Career:...
, an Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian professor of translation studies at the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
in England and a signatory of the 2002 open letter, decided in early June 2002 to remove two Israeli academics – Dr. Miriam Shlesinger of Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...
, a former chair of Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, Israel; and Professor Gideon Toury of Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
– from the editorial boards of the journals Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts that Baker and her husband publish.
Manfred Gerstenfeld
Manfred Gerstenfeld
Manfred Gerstenfeld is an Austrian-born Israeli author and political activist.-Biography:Manfred Gerstenfeld was born in Vienna, grew up in Amsterdam and moved to Israel in 1968. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Gerstenfeld was a board member of the Israel...
claims that Baker offered to allow the academics to remain on the board only on condition that they leave and sever all ties with Israel. Baker claims to have never made any such statements. Her views are articulated on her web site.
Mona Baker's email to Prof Toury read:
- Dear Gideon, I have been agonising for weeks over an important decision: to ask you and Miriam, respectively, to resign from the boards of the Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts. I have already asked Miriam and she refused. I have 'unappointed' her as she puts it, and if you decide to do the same I will have to officially unappoint you too.
- I do not expect you to feel happy about this, and I very much regret hurting your feelings and Miriam's. My decision is political, not personal.
- As far as I am concerned, I will always regard and treat you both as friends, on a personal level, but I do not wish to continue an official association with any Israeli under the present circumstances.
Prof Toury replied:
- I would appreciate it if the announcement made it clear that 'he' (that is, I) was appointed as a scholar and unappointed as an Israeli.
In response to a barrage of negative mail, critical media attention, and a denunciation from Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, Mona Baker told a reporter from the Daily Telegraph:
This is my interpretation of the boycott statement that I've signed and I've tried to make that clear but it doesn't seem to be getting through. I am not actually boycotting Israelis, I am boycotting Israeli institutions. I am convinced that long after this is all over, as it was with the Jews in the Holocaust, people will start admitting that they should have done something, that it was deplorable and that academia was cowardly if it hadn't moved on this.
She also clarified her position on her web site where she stated that she had received a large amount of hate mail, which is "now a common tactic of the Zionist lobby" and that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians "justifies relatively extreme measures such as academic and cultural boycotts."
Association of University Teachers
On 22 April 2005, the Council of Association of University TeachersAssociation of University Teachers
The Association of University Teachers was the trade union and professional association that represented academic and academic-related staff at pre-1992 universities in the United Kingdom...
(AUT) voted to boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
two Israeli universities: University of Haifa
University of Haifa
The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.The University of Haifa was founded in 1963 by Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, to operate under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
and Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...
. The motions to AUT Council were prompted by the call for a boycott from nearly 60 Palestinian academics and others. The AUT Council voted to boycott Bar-Ilan because it runs courses at colleges in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
(referring to Ariel
Ariel (city)
Ariel is an Israeli settlement and a city in the West Bank. Ariel was established in 1978. Its population at the end of 2009 was 17,600, including 7,000 immigrants who came to Israel after 1990. It is the fourth largest Jewish settlement city in the West Bank., after Modi'in Illit, Beitar Illit,...
College) and "is thus directly involved with the occupation of Palestinian territories contrary to United Nations resolutions". It boycotted Haifa because it was alleged that the university had wrongly disciplined a lecturer. The action against the lecturer was supposedly for supporting a student who wrote about attacks on Palestinians during the founding of the state of Israel. Some aspects of the student's research had been falsified (see this page) and the University denied having disciplined the lecturer. Union members claimed that Staff and students [of Israeli universities] who seek to research Israel's history in full are often "victimised".
Condemnation and backlash
The AUT's decision was immediately condemned by Jewish groups and many members of the AUT. Critics of the boycott within and outside the AUT noted that at the meeting at which the boycott motion was passed the leadership cut short the debate citing a lack of time. Specifically, the Board of Deputies of British JewsBoard of Deputies of British Jews
The Board of Deputies of British Jews is the main representative body of British Jews. Founded in 1760 as a joint committee of the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities in London, it has since become a widely recognised forum for the views of the different sectors of the UK Jewish...
and the Union of Jewish Students
Union of Jewish Students
The Union of Jewish Students of the United Kingdom and Ireland was established in 1919, when it was known as the Inter-University Jewish Federation...
accused the AUT of purposely holding the vote during Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
, when many Jewish members could not be present.
The presidents of Jerusalem-based al-Quds University
Al-Quds University
Al-Quds University is a Palestinian university with campuses in Jerusalem, Abu Dis, and al-Bireh. It was founded in 1984, but its official constitution was written in 1993 when Mohammed Nusseibeh, its first Chancellor and Chancellor of the College of Science and Technology, announced its...
and Hebrew University issued a joint statement condemning the boycott effort as unproductive towards ending the "shared tragedy" but rather could prolong it:
One of the university presidents, Sari Nusseibeh
Sari Nusseibeh
Sari Nusseibeh , and raised in Jerusalem, is a Palestinian professor of philosophy and president of the Al-Quds University in Jerusalem...
of al-Quds University
Al-Quds University
Al-Quds University is a Palestinian university with campuses in Jerusalem, Abu Dis, and al-Bireh. It was founded in 1984, but its official constitution was written in 1993 when Mohammed Nusseibeh, its first Chancellor and Chancellor of the College of Science and Technology, announced its...
, continued: "If we are to look at Israeli society, it is within the academic community that we've had the most progressive pro-peace views and views that have come out in favor of seeing us as equals [...] If you want to punish any sector, this is the last one to approach." He acknowledges, however, that his view is a minority one amongst Palestinian academics.
Zvi Ravner, Israel’s deputy ambassador in London, noted that "[t]he last time that Jews were boycotted in universities was in 1930s Germany."
The British National Postgraduate Committee also voted to oppose the boycott. Project officer Andre Oboler said that the boycott "runs contrary to our objective, which is to advance in the public interest the education of postgraduate students within the UK".
Cancellation of boycott
After the backlash and condemnation – both internal and external – members of the AUT, headed by Open UniversityOpen University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
lecturer and Engage
Engage (organization)
Engage is an organisation which publishes materials in opposition to what they see as left and liberal antisemitism, primarily in UK academic institutions. The group is made up of left-wing academic who oppose boycotts of Israel...
founder Jon Pike – gathered enough signatures to call a special meeting on the subject. The meeting was held on 26 May 2005, at Friends Meeting House in London. Supporters of rival positions gathered on the streets outside this meeting. Pro-boycott demonstrators called for the AUT to maintain its course against what they described as ""unbelievable pressure", while anti-boycott demonstrators suggested that the decision had been influenced by anti-Semitism , and argued that the AUT's integrity was being threatened by a group of "leftwing extremists". At the meeting the AUT membership decided to cancel the boycott of both Israeli universities. Reasons cited for the decision were: the damage to academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
, the hampering of dialogue and peace effort between Israelis and Palestinians
Projects working for peace among Israelis and Arabs
Projects working for peace among Arabs and Israelis have been operating for years in different fields.- Policy groups:Organizations or institutions which address and analyze policy issues in a wide range of areas...
, and that boycotting Israel alone could not be justified.
National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education
In May 2006, on the last day of its final conference, National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher EducationNational Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education
The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education was the British trade union and professional association for people working with those above statutory school age, and primarily concerned with providing education, training or research...
(NATFHE) passed motion 198C, a call to boycott Israeli academics who did not vocally speak out against their government.
The following portions of the resolution are quoted by Brian Klug
Brian Klug
Brian Klug is Senior Research Fellow & Tutor in Philosophy at St. Benet's Hall, Oxford and a member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford University...
:
- "The conference invites members to consider their own responsibility for ensuring equity and non-discrimination in contacts with Israeli educational institutions or individuals, and to consider the appropriateness of a boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies."
- "The conference notes continuing Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices. It recalls its motion of solidarity last year for the AUT resolution to exercise moral and professional responsibility."
The resolution was dismissed by the AUT, the union into which the NATFHE was merging into.
Overall four attempts were made to pass pro-boycott motions at the annual conferences of the University teachers, especially following its reorganisation as the University and College Union in 2008. Threatened by legal action on the one hand, and opposed by all University heads on the other, these never went beyond the declarative stage.
Criticism
A group of eight Nobel laureates denounced the policy before it was passed, suggesting that it would limit academic freedom. Frank Wilczek of MIT was critical of the measure: "The primary value of the scientific community is pursuit of understanding through free and open discourse. The clarity of that beacon to humanity should not be compromised for transient political concerns."Brian Klug
Brian Klug
Brian Klug is Senior Research Fellow & Tutor in Philosophy at St. Benet's Hall, Oxford and a member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford University...
makes this criticism of the NATFHE motion:
- "In short, the intention of the Natfhe motion – what it seeks and why – is obscure. But even if the policy and rationale were clear and unambiguous, there is a deeper problem with motions of this sort that prevents them from attracting a broad base of support: they rely on the false (or limited) analogy implied by the word 'apartheid'. This is not to say that there are no points of comparison, for there are – just as there are in a host of other countries where minority ethnic and national groups are oppressed. Nor is it even to say that the suffering experienced by Palestinians is less than that endured by 'non-whites' in South Africa: it may or may not be (although I am not sure how to do the sums). But as I have argued elsewhere: 'The validity of the analogy does not depend on a catalogue of atrocities, however appalling'."
The Association of Jewish Sixthformers (AJ6) issued a press release expressing dismay and concern "about the affects of any boycott on Jewish and Israeli Sixthformers." Specifically, AJ6 pointed to "partnerships and exchange visits with Israeli schools and colleges may be under threat", that "Jewish students who study in Israel during their Gap Years are worried that teachers may refuse to provide them with references for these programmes."
The Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
issued a statement which condemned the motion explaining:
- "It is profoundly unjust for academics in the only democratic country in the Middle East – the only country where scholarship and debate are permitted to freely flourish – to be held to an ideological test and the threat of being blacklisted because of their views. No one would expect a British or American professor to have to withstand such scrutiny of their political views. Yet, when it comes to Israel a different standard applies".
The British government, through Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Lord Triesman, issued a statement that the motion was "counterproductive and retrograde" although the British Government recognized "the independence of the NATFHE."
Paul Mackney, the general secretary of NATFHE, was sent over 15,000 messages from boycott opponents.
Response to criticism
Mackney, the general secretary of NATFHE and who opposed the motion as passed, is quoted after the fact by the Guardian:- "The ironic thing, is if we had put this to delegates a couple of weeks ago, before the international pro-Israeli lobby started this massive campaign emailing delegates and trying to deny us our democratic right to discuss whatever we like, it probably wouldn't have passed. People feel bullied, and what we have seen is a hardening of attitudes. All they achieved was making the delegates determined to debate and pass the motion."
Tamara Traubmann and Benjamin Joffe-Walt, reporting for the Guardian, conducted an analysis of "whether the campaigns against such boycotts are actually motivated by concerns for academic freedom, or whether they are using the universalist ideal to stifle critical discussion of Israel." They describe their findings this way:
- "Through discussions with anti-boycott campaigners and a trace of the most common emails (not necessarily abusive) sent to the union and handed over by Natfhe, we found the vast majority of the tens of thousands of emails originated not with groups fighting for academic freedom, but with lobby groups and thinktanks that regularly work to delegitimise criticisms of Israel."
2007
On 30 May 2007, the congress of the University and College UnionUniversity and College Union
The University and College Union is a British trade union formed by the merger in 2006 of the Association of University Teachers and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education ....
(created by the merger of AUT and NATFHE) voted (by 158 votes to 99) on Motion 30, which called for the UCU to circulate a boycott request by Palestinian trade unions to all branches for information and discussion. It called on lecturers to "consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions." This position is considered to be anti-semitic by some Jewish organizations such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...
.
Motion 30 as amended:
- Congress notes that Israel's 40-year occupation has seriously damaged the fabric of Palestinian society through annexation, illegal settlement, collective punishmentCollective punishmentCollective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions...
and restriction of movement. - Congress deplores the denial of educational rights for Palestinians by invasions, closures, checkpoints, curfews, and shootings and arrests of teachers, lecturers and students.
- Congress condemns the complicity of Israeli academia in the occupation, which has provoked a call from Palestinian trade unions for a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli academic institutions.
- Congress believes that in these circumstances passivity or neutrality is unacceptable and criticism of Israel cannot be construed as anti-semitic.
- Congress instructs the NEC to
- circulate the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches/LAs for information and discussion;
- encourage members to consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions;
- organise a UK-wide campus tour for Palestinian academic/educational trade unionists;
- issue guidance to members on appropriate forms of action.
- actively encourage and support branches to create direct links with Palestinian educational institutions and to help set up nationally sponsored programmes for teacher exchanges, sabbatical placements, and research.
In September 2007, delegates at the Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
conference voted to condemn the UCU's "perverse" decision. They called for University and College Union members to reject the proposal and continue to engage in "the fullest possible dialogue" with their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts.
Susan Fuhrman, President of Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University is a graduate school of education located in New York City, New York...
said, saying, "As the president of an academic institution dedicated in large part to the preparation of teachers, I believe that universities and all centers of learning must be allowed to function as safe havens for freedom of discussion, debate and intellectual inquiry, standing apart from national and international politics and partisan strife. Only thus can they continue to produce scholarship that informs the policies and laws of democratic societies and stand as islands of hope in a frequently polarized world. ... Teachers College welcomes dialogue with Israeli scholars and universities and stands with Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
President Lee Bollinger in expressing solidarity with them by inviting UCU to boycott us, as well."
Japanese physicist Shin-ichi Kurokawa of the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Tsukuba, Japan, wrote to the general secretary of UCU. He said the proposed boycott "clearly violates" Statute 5 of the International Council for Science
International Council for Science
The International Council for Science , formerly the International Council of Scientific Unions, was founded in 1931 as an international non-governmental organization devoted to international co-operation in the advancement of science...
.
2008
In 2008 an internal controversy over the University and College Union proposed Academic boycotts of Israel arose. During August 2008, one UCU member, Jenna Delich, forwarded a link to an editorial on the news web site Sott.net written by Joe Quinn to a private UCU activists email discussion list comprising some 700 people. The editorial, entitled 'Racism, not Defence, at the heart of Israeli politics' strongly condemned Israeli government and military treatment of Palestinians, specifically during the 2006 Israeli military operation code named "summer rain".The link to Quinn's editorial however was not to the original on the Sott.net web site but to a republication of the editorial on the web site of former Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
member and white supremacist David Duke
David Duke
David Ernest Duke is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in...
. Quinn claimed that no permission had been asked or given for the republication.
David Hirsh
David Hirsh
David Hirsh is a Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London and the founder of Engage, a campaign against academic boycotts of Israel....
, a lecturer in Sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
at Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...
and founder of Engage
Engage (organization)
Engage is an organisation which publishes materials in opposition to what they see as left and liberal antisemitism, primarily in UK academic institutions. The group is made up of left-wing academic who oppose boycotts of Israel...
, a campaign against academic boycotts of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, became involved in the controversy when, in August 2008, he obtained a copy of Ms. Delich's message to the activists list and posted it on his Engage web site. Hirsh commented that the UCU was now circulating links to David Duke’s website on behalf of Delich.
Hirsh, also a University and College Union member, had been banned from the UCU activists’ email list in November 2007 for breaching rules of confidentiality.
Delich quickly clarified that she had not realised who David Duke was and stated that, while strongly against racists and anti-semites, she maintained her support for the views expressed in Quinn's editorial
On 26 August 2008, The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
s London correspondent Jonny Paul wrote an editorial on the incident.
Developments in early 2009
A joint open letter by a group of academics was published in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
on 16 January 2009. The letter called on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to stop its "military aggression and colonial occupation" of the Palestinian land and its "criminal use of force". Suggesting to start with a programme of |boycott, divestment and sanctions (the BDS movement).
There has been a great deal of discussion concerning the links between the calls for boycott and a growth of anti-semitism in the UK, and on British campuses in particular. While organisations such as Engage or the SPME argue that widespread anti-semitism is at the root of the problem, this has been disputed by some academics who argue that this is a self defeating argument. This was particularly the position taken by the representtaives of Israel's universities in the UK, Professor David Newman
David Newman
David Newman may refer to:*David Newman of Loughborough since 2009*David Newman , aka David "Fathead" Newman, American jazz saxophonist*David Newman , American composer...
who, while countering the attempts at academic boycott, did not see all such activity as being inherently anti-semitic. Newman, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Israel's Ben-Gurion University
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is a university in Beersheba, Israel, established in 1969. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has a current enrollment of 17,400 students, and is one of Israel's fastest growing universities....
, focused his activities on strengthening scientific and academic links between Israel and the UK, and was influential in creating the BIRAX research and scientiric cooperation agreement between the two countries – an agreement which was promoted by successive British Ambassadors to Israel, Tom Philips and Matthew Gould, and which has been funded, amongst others by the Pears Foundation in London.
Neither was the counter boycott campaign helped by a small number of Israeli academics who also supported the boycott. Most notable amongst these was Professor Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon is a doctor of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who writes on issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and human rights. A third-generation Israeli, Gordon did his military service in an IDF Paratrooper unit, and suffered severe injuries in...
, a professor of Political Science at Ben-Gurion University, who published a column in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
in the summer of 2009, supporting boycott activity against Israel for as long as the country continued with its policy of occupation. This led to demands for his dismissal by many of the university supporters and donors in the USA, and resulted in a lively debate about the limitations of academic freedom amongst Israeli academics.
2009 Boycott Resolution
At the UCU annual congress held on 27–29 May 2009, the union again passed a resolution to boycott Israeli academics and academic institutions by a large majority. Delegates stated that Israeli academics were complicit in their government's acts against Palestinians. However, the vote was immediately declared invalid as UCU attorneys repeated previous warnings that such a boycott would likely trigger legal action against the union. The union also overwhelmingly rejected a resolution urging them to examine the trend of "resignations of UCU members apparently in connection with perceptions of institutional anti-Semitism."
Tom Hickey, from the University of Brighton
University of Brighton
The University of Brighton is an English university of the United Kingdom, with a community of over 23,000 students and 2,600 staff based on campuses in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. It has one of the best teaching quality ratings in the UK and a strong research record, factors which...
, put forward one of two motions calling for lecturers to "reflect on the moral and political appropriateness of collaboration with Israeli educational institutions". Martin Ralph, from the University of Liverpool
University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university in the city of Liverpool, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration. Founded in 1881 , it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic...
, called for a boycott, disinvestment and a sanctions campaign against Israel. He also suggested that a new conference be held to determine how the boycott could be legally implemented.
Camilla Bassi, from Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield Hallam University is a higher education institution in South Yorkshire, England, based on two sites in Sheffield. City Campus is located in the city centre, close to Sheffield railway station, and Collegiate Crescent Campus is about two miles away, adjacent to Ecclesall Road in...
, opposed the boycott, stating that it would "not help anyone" and would be "part of an anti-Jewish movement." She also stated that: "It is a recipe against all Israelis when we need links between Israeli and Palestinian workers." Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Leadership Council
Jewish Leadership Council
The Jewish Leadership Council was formed in 2003, . The Council was founded by its first Chairman, then President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Henry Grunwald QC and an array of other senior UK Jewish leaders. The JLC brings together the most senior lay leaders of the major...
and joint head of Stop the Boycott, sharply criticised the boycott proposal, stating that: "Whether you are a trade unionist wanting a powerful union or whether you are a long-standing campaigner for peace, it is clear that the UCU has taken leave of its senses. There is the potential for this union to play a remarkable role at this hugely crucial time. If the UCU was a serious union representing their members they would be working to involve Israelis and Palestinians in each other's destiny."
2010
At its annual 2010 conference, UCU members voted to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel and sever ties with the HistadrutHistadrut
HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael , known as the Histadrut, is Israel's organization of trade unions. Established in December 1920 during the British Mandate for Palestine, it became one of the most powerful institutions of the State of Israel.-History:The Histadrut was founded in...
(Israel's organization of trade unions). Tom Hickey, from the University of Brighton
University of Brighton
The University of Brighton is an English university of the United Kingdom, with a community of over 23,000 students and 2,600 staff based on campuses in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. It has one of the best teaching quality ratings in the UK and a strong research record, factors which...
, who introduced the motion, stated that the Histadrut had supported "the Israeli assault on civilians in Gaza" in January 2009, and "did not deserve the name of a trade union organization." An amendment to this motion, which sought to "form a committee which represents all views within UCU to review relations with the Histadrut" and report back in a year, was defeated. The UCU's boycott motion invoked a "call from the Palestinian Boycott National Committee” for “an isolation of Israel while it continues to act in breach of international law" and calls to "campaign actively" against Israel’s trade agreement with the European Union.
Another motion passed at the conference committed the UCU to starting the investigatory process associated with imposing a boycott on the Ariel University Center of Samaria.
2011
At the UCU's annual conference in Harrogate, Yorkshire held in May 2011, the again union voted to adopt an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.At the same conference, UCU members voted to disassociate itself from the EU working definition of anti-Semitism on the grounds that the definition of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights stifles debate and is used to deflect criticism of Israel.
The union's abrogation was sharply criticised by leaders of Jewish organisations in the UK and Israel, including Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews
Board of Deputies of British Jews
The Board of Deputies of British Jews is the main representative body of British Jews. Founded in 1760 as a joint committee of the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities in London, it has since become a widely recognised forum for the views of the different sectors of the UK Jewish...
(the Board); Paul Usiskin, chairman of Peace Now UK; Oliver Worth, chairman of the World Union of Jewish Students
World Union of Jewish Students
The World Union of Jewish Students is the international, pluralistic, non-partisan umbrella organisation of 48 national independent Jewish Student Unions from all over the world, founded in 1924, with Albert Einstein as its first President...
; Dan Sheldon, Union of Jewish Students
Union of Jewish Students
The Union of Jewish Students of the United Kingdom and Ireland was established in 1919, when it was known as the Inter-University Jewish Federation...
; and Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, who said: "After this weekend's events, I believe the UCU is institutionally racist."
The Jewish Leadership Council
Jewish Leadership Council
The Jewish Leadership Council was formed in 2003, . The Council was founded by its first Chairman, then President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Henry Grunwald QC and an array of other senior UK Jewish leaders. The JLC brings together the most senior lay leaders of the major...
(JLC) wrote to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to express its concern, while a letter of protest was sent to UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt
Sally Hunt
Sally Hunt is the General Secretary of the University and College Union . Prior to the UCU coming into existence on June 1, 2006, she was the last General Secretary of the Association of University Teachers , having held that post since 2002...
from Mick Davis (chair of trustees of the JLC), Gerald M. Ronson (trustee of the JLC and chairman of the Community Security Trust
Community Security Trust
The Community Security Trust is a British charity established in 1994 to ensure the safety and security of the Jewish community in the UK. It follows a history of Jewish defence organisations in the United Kingdom dating back to the 1930s...
(CST)), Vivian Wineman (president of the Board and chair of the Council of Membership of the JLC) and Sir Trevor Chinn CVO (vice-president of the JLC). Wineman, also wrote to university vice chancellors asking them to consider whether maintaining a normal relationship with UCU was compatible with their requirement to "eliminate discrimination and foster good relations" with minorities. Representatives of the JLC, the Board and the Community Security Trust appealed to government ministers David Willetts and Eric Pickles to support a formal EHRC investigation into the decision, and Ariel Hessayon, a lecturer at Goldsmiths University, resigned from the UCU in protest at the union's abrogation of the EU definition.
Sally Hunt responded that the UCU remained opposed to antisemitism and asked for a meeting with Jewish leaders to help write an "acceptable" definition of anti-Jewish prejudice. The union and its branches have held a number of events to commemorate Jewish suffering during WWII.
On 30 June 2011, Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles
Eric Pickles
Eric Jack Pickles is a British Conservative Party politician. Pickles was appointed Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government of the coalition government headed by Prime Minister David Cameron on 12 May 2010....
called on the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the UCU, citing the May antisemitism resolution. In July 2011, UCU was given notice of the intent of a Jewish UCU member to sue the union for breach of the Equality Act 2010. The case was filed under the Equality Act with the Employment Tribunal
Employment tribunal
Employment Tribunals are tribunal non-departmental public bodies in England and Wales and Scotland which have statutory jurisdiction to hear many kinds of disputes between employers and employees. The most common disputes are concerned with unfair dismissal, redundancy payments and employment...
in September 2011, and is expected to be heard in the summer of 2012.
United States
No American school has ever divested from or imposed an academic boycott on Israel despite strong boycott campaigns. Former President of Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
Larry Summers has called Israel-boycott efforts "anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.”
Boycott campaign
Haaretz reported that in the wake of the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict
The Gaza War, known as Operation Cast Lead in Israel and as the Gaza Massacre in the Arab world, was a three-week bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israel, and hundreds of rocket attacks on south of Israel which...
, a group of American professors has joined the boycott call:
- "While Israeli academics have grown used to such news from Great Britain, where anti-Israel groups several times attempted to establish academic boycotts, the formation of the United States movement marks the first time that a national academic boycott movement has come out of America."
The group name is "U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel."
15 academics, mostly based in California, founded the campaign mostly but according to David Lloyd
David Lloyd (academic)
David Lloyd is a professor of literature. He holds a B.A. , an M.A. , and a PhD in Literature and Colonialism, all from Cambridge University...
,a professor of Irish literature and post-colonial studies at USC, it is "currently expanding to create a network that embraces the United States as a whole."
Other American academics that have advocated for boycotts against Israel include Andrew Ross
Andrew Ross
Andrew Ross is currently a professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. A writer for Artforum, The Nation and The Village Voice, he is also the author and/or editor of numerous books...
and Simona Sawhney.
Columbia University
The Columbia Palestine Forum (CPF), which formed at Columbia University in March 2009, maintains that Israel is an apartheid state and advocates for boycott and divestment efforts against Israel. The group has called for increased disclosure of university finances to establish that Columbia funds are not being used towards "maintenance of the Israeli occupation and human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank," and advocates divestment of university funds from any companies that profit from what it describes as the "continued occupation of Palestinian lands, the maintenance of illegal Israeli settlements and the walls being built around Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem."CPF outlined its demands to a university representative during a 5 March demonstration. The prior day, it held a panel discussion featuring multiple Columbia faculty members who have been supportive of the group. Gil Anidjar, a religion professor, advocated boycott as an appropriate "exercise of freedom," while anthropology professor Brinkley Messick indicated that Columbia President Lee Bollinger
Lee Bollinger
Lee Carroll Bollinger is an American lawyer and educator who is currently serving as the 19th president of Columbia University. Formerly the president of the University of Michigan, he is a noted legal scholar of the First Amendment and freedom of speech...
had agreed to meet with the faculty to discuss the demands for divestment. One CPF member described the group's goals in a 3 March article for Columbia's newspaper, stating that "by divesting from companies that do business with the occupation, we can put global pressure on the Israeli government to end it."
Hamid Dabashi
One of the strongest advocates of the boycott campaign is Hamid DabashiHamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi born 1951 in Ahvaz is an Iranian-American Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.He is the author of over twenty books...
, professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia, who is on the advisory board of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel. Dabashi supports boycott efforts targeting both Israeli individuals and institutions:
"The divestment campaign that has been far more successful in Western Europe needs to be reinvigorated in North America – as must the boycotting of the Israeli cultural and academic institutions… Naming names and denouncing individually every prominent Israeli intellectual who has publicly endorsed their elected officials' wide-eyed barbarism, and then categorically boycotting their universities and colleges, film festivals and cultural institutions, is the single most important act of solidarity that their counterparts can do around the world."
Rumors
In February 2009, false reports circulated that Hampshire CollegeHampshire College
Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1965 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts...
in Amherst, MA, had become the first of any college or university in the U.S. to particitape in the divestment campaign campaign to divest
In August 2010 false rumors circulate that Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
had divested from Israel.
Opposition from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
In March 2009, the American Federation of TeachersAmerican Federation of Teachers
The American Federation of Teachers is an American labor union founded in 1916 that represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; local, state and federal employees; higher education faculty and staff, and nurses and other healthcare professionals...
(AFT) reiterated its opposition to any academic boycott of Israel (or any other country) but added that discussion of the Israel-Palestinian conflict should be encouraged. AFT President Randi Weingarten
Randi Weingarten
'Randi Weingarten is an American labor leader, attorney, and educator, the current president of the American Federation of Teachers , a member of the AFL-CIO, and former president of the United Federation of Teachers. New York magazine called her one of the most influential people in education in...
stated that:
"We believe academic boycotts were a bad idea in 2002 and are a bad idea now. Academic boycotts are inconsistent with the democratic values of academic freedom and free expression... We want to make clear that this position does not in any way discourage an open discussion and debate of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or of ways to resolve it. However, we expect that such a discussion would not be one-sided and would consider the behavior of all the relevant actors. An academic boycott of Israel, or of any country, for that matter, would effectively suppress free speech without helping to resolve the conflict."
Canada
In January 2009, the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public EmployeesCanadian Union of Public Employees
The Canadian Union of Public Employees is a Canadian trade union serving the public sector - although it has in recent years organized workplaces in the non-profit and para-public sector as well...
brought forward a proposal to ban Israeli academics from teaching at Ontario Universities. CUPE-Ontario leader Sid Ryan
Sid Ryan
Patrick Cyril "Sid" Ryan is president of the Ontario Federation of Labour and a longtime Canadian labour union leader and politician.-Biography:...
stated, "we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general." Ryan subsequently said, "Academic freedom goes both ways. What we are saying is if they want to remain silent and be complicit in these kinds of actions, why should they enjoy the freedom to come and teach in other countries like Canada?" CUPE's national president, Paul Moist, issued a statement declaring his opposition to the motion and saying, "I will be using my influence in any debates on such a resolution to oppose its adoption."
Shortly after its original statement, CUPE removed its call to boycott individual academics from its website and replaced it with statement that called instead for a boycott "aimed at academic institutions and the institutional connections that exist between universities here and those in Israel." Tyler Shipley
Tyler Shipley
Tyler Shipley is a songwriter, musician and political activist from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is best known for a political pop band called The Consumer Goods who have released three records since 2005, toured across Canada and received critical acclaim in North America and Europe...
, spokesperson for CUPE local 3903 at York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
, told the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
that his group will begin to advocate for York to sever financial ties to Israel.
Some observers have questioned what practical effect any CUPE resolution will have since the 20,000 university workers represented by CUPE Ontario include campus staff but almost no full-time faculty.
Australia
The University of Western SydneyUniversity of Western Sydney
The University of Western Sydney, also known as UWS, is a multi-campus university in the Greater Western region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
’s Student Association (UWSSA) formally affiliated to the “Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel” in February 2009, following a request from PACBI. The President of the UWSSA, Jacob Carswell-Doherty, later stated that “We have no interest in hearing the Israeli viewpoint. Our agenda is to persuade the university administration to implement the terms of the boycott.”
Criticism
Proposed academic boycotts of Israel have been the subject of contentious debate. Some issues that have been highlighted are:- Are academic boycotts of Israel ethically justified?
- Would they be an effective and positive agent of change?
- Are there overriding issues of academic freedom?
- Are the proposals a cover for anti-Semitism?
- Is Israel being unjustly singled out?
A prominent Palestinian academic, president of Al-Quds University
Al-Quds University
Al-Quds University is a Palestinian university with campuses in Jerusalem, Abu Dis, and al-Bireh. It was founded in 1984, but its official constitution was written in 1993 when Mohammed Nusseibeh, its first Chancellor and Chancellor of the College of Science and Technology, announced its...
, Sari Nusseibeh
Sari Nusseibeh
Sari Nusseibeh , and raised in Jerusalem, is a Palestinian professor of philosophy and president of the Al-Quds University in Jerusalem...
, has argued against academic boycotts of Israel, telling Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
"If we are to look at Israeli society, it is within the academic community that we've had the most progressive pro-peace views and views that have come out in favor of seeing us as equals... If you want to punish any sector, this is the last one to approach." He acknowledges, however, that his view is a minority one amongst Palestinian academics.
Comparisons to academic boycotts of South Africa
The academic boycott of South Africa is frequently invoked as a model for more recent efforts to organize academic boycotts of Israel.Some invoke the comparison to claim that an academic boycott of Israel should not be controversial based on a misconception that the academic boycott of South Africa was uncontroversial and straightforward. The reality, at the time, was very different. The effort was the subject of significant criticism and contentious debate from diverse segments. Andrew Beckett writes, in the Guardian, on this frequent mistaken comparison: "In truth, boycotts are blunt weapons. Even the most apparently straightforward and justified ones, on closer inspection, have their controversies and injustices."
Others, such as Hillary and Stephen Rose in Nature, make the comparison and argue for an academic boycott of Israel based on a belief that the academic boycott of South Africa was effective in ending apartheid. George Fink responds to this claim in a letter to Nature:
In 2010, the Senate of the University of Johannesburg
University of Johannesburg
The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Technikon Witwatersrand and the Rand Afrikaans University . Prior to the merger, the Daveyton and Soweto campuses of the former Vista University had been incorporated into RAU...
recommended cutting off all links with Ben-Gurion University in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
because of the country's policies. The scientific agreement, which focused on cooperation in water research, had only been sigend in the previous year. Prior to making a final decision, the university sent a senior delegation of its faculty on a fact finding tour to Israel in January 2011.
Accusations of antisemitism
Anthony JuliusAnthony Julius
Anthony Julius is a prominent British lawyer and academic, best known for his actions on behalf of Diana, Princess of Wales, Deborah Lipstadt and more recently Heather Mills...
and Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
argue that despite a small number of Jews who have supported boycotts, the boycotts themselves are antisemitic, using their anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...
as a cover for "Jew hatred". They compare the boycotts to the 1222 Canterbury Council
Stephen Langton
Stephen Langton was Archbishop of Canterbury between 1207 and his death in 1228 and was a central figure in the dispute between King John of England and Pope Innocent III, which ultimately led to the issuing of Magna Carta in 1215...
sharply limiting Christian contact with Jews, and Nazi boycotts of Jewish shops in the 1930s, as well as Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
attempts to economically isolate Israel and refrain from purchasing "anything Jewish."
Harvard President Larry Summers
Lawrence Summers
Lawrence Henry Summers is an American economist. He served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He was Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President Barack Obama until November 2010.Summers is the...
"blasted" the boycotts as "antisemitic":
“[T]here is much that should be, indeed that must be, debated regarding Israeli policy...But the academic boycott resolution passed by the British professors union in the way that it singles out Israel is in my judgment anti-Semitic in both effect and in intent.”
Summers had previously argued that a proposed boycott was antisemitic "in effect, if not intent". This position was criticized by Judith Butler
Judith Butler
Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
, in an article entitled "No, it's not anti-semitic". Butler argues the distinction of effective anti-semitism, and intentional anti-semitism is at best controversial. "If we think that to criticise Israeli violence, or to call for economic pressure to be put on the Israeli state to change its policies, is to be ‘effectively anti-semitic’, we will fail to voice our opposition for fear of being named as part of an anti-semitic enterprise. No label could be worse for a Jew, who knows that, ethically and politically, the position with which it would be unbearable to identify is that of the anti-semite."
Successful campaign to boycott Ben-Gurion University
The campaign for the boycott of Ben-Gurion University (BGU)Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev is a university in Beersheba, Israel, established in 1969. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has a current enrollment of 17,400 students, and is one of Israel's fastest growing universities....
launched the first public campaign for academic boycott against Israel in South Africa.
On 5 September 2010, a nationwide academic petition was initiated by academics supporting a termination of a partnership agreement between the University of Johannesburg (UJ)
University of Johannesburg
The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Technikon Witwatersrand and the Rand Afrikaans University . Prior to the merger, the Daveyton and Soweto campuses of the former Vista University had been incorporated into RAU...
and BGU; a long-standing partnership dating back to apartheid era relations between the two institutions. Well-known academics such as Professors Breyten Breytenbach
Breyten Breytenbach
Breyten Breytenbach is a South African writer and painter with French citizenship.-Biography:Breyten Breytenbach was born in Bonnievale, Western Cape, approximately 180 km from Cape Town and 100 km from the southernmost tip of Africa at Cape Agulhas...
, John Dugard
John Dugard
John Dugard is a South African professor of international law. He has served as Judge ad hoc on the International Court of Justice and as a Special Rapporteur for both the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the International Law Commission...
, Mahmood Mamdani, Antjie Krog
Antjie Krog
Antjie Krog, born October 23, 1952 in Kroonstad, Orange Free State, South Africa, is a prominent South African poet, academic and writer. In 2004 she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape.- Early life :...
and Achille Mbembe
Achille Mbembe
Achille Mbembe is a philosopher and political scientist. He was born in Cameroon in 1957. He obtained his Ph.D. in History at the University of Sorbonne in Paris, France, in 1989. He subsequently obtained a D.E.A. in Political Science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in the same city...
are signatories to the academic petition, which is also backed by Vice-Chancellors from four universities in South Africa.
Amidst widespread public attention, both within South Africa and internationally, the campaign to boycott BGU quickly gained momentum and within a few days more than 250 academics had signed the petition, stating:
“The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has had disastrous effects on access to education for Palestinians. While Palestinians are not able to access universities and schools, Israeli universities produce the research, technology, arguments and leaders for maintaining the occupation. BGU is no exception, by maintaining links to both the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and the arms industry BGU structurally supports and facilitates the Israeli occupation."
On 26 September 2010 Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
released a letter through the Sunday Times, under the heading “Israeli ties: a chance to do the right thing”, supporting the academics. The Nobel Laureate’s position in favour of the boycott was accompanied by an appeal that: “The University of Johannesburg has a chance to do the right thing, at a time when it is unsexy.”
Former South African cabinet minister and ANC leader Ronnie Kasrils
Ronnie Kasrils
Ronald Kasrils is a South African politician. He was Minister for Intelligence Services from 27 April 2004 to 25 September 2008...
also came out in support of the boycott call and wrote in the Guardian: “Israeli universities are not being targeted for boycott because of their ethnic or religious identity, but because of their complicity in the Israeli system of apartheid” and that "The principled position of academics in South Africa to distance themselves from institutions that support the occupation is a reflection of the advances already made in exposing that the Israeli regime is guilty of an illegal and immoral colonial project."
Decision to set conditions on Ben-Gurion University
Against the backdrop of the publicly supported campaign, UJ’s highest academic body (Senate) voted on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 "not to continue a long-standing relationship with Ben-Gurion University in Israel in its present form" and conditionally terminate its Apartheid-era relationship with BGU.A fact-finding investigation conducted by the University confirmed BGU's links with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and complicity in the Israeli occupation. Accepting the recommendations of the report, the University committed itself to end any research or teaching relationship with Ben-Gurion University that has direct or indirect military links; or in instances where human rights abuses are identified. The University has stated that if BGU violates any of the conditions agreed on by Senate or UJ’s stated principles, which include “solidarity with any oppressed population”, the relationship will be terminated completely after 6 months.
More SA varsities check Israeli links
Within hours of the University of Johannesburg's decision to conditionally terminate its links with Ben-Gurion University, major South African universities began looking into their own ties with Israeli universities.Wits University vice-chancellor Loyiso Nongxa told journalists that he was not aware of "any formal links – a memorandum of understanding [MoU] – between Wits and Israeli universities". Three hours later, Wits university’s spokesperson confirmed that it "has no formal ties with any Israeli university, according to our database".
The University of Cape Town followed suit shortly afterwards stating that: "There are no institution-level partnerships with Israeli universities." The University of Pretoria, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and Stellenbosch University have since confirmed that they have no formal partnerships with institutions in Israel.
Israel
There have been academic supporters of the boycott from within Israel itself.On 20 August 2009, Israeli Professor Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon is a doctor of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who writes on issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and human rights. A third-generation Israeli, Gordon did his military service in an IDF Paratrooper unit, and suffered severe injuries in...
wrote in an Los Angeles Times editorial that he had decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel movement. He stated that Israel had become so right wing and 'an apartheid state' that he felt he had no choice but to support this course of action.
Dr Gordon faced intense national and international criticism. In response, the Jewish Voice for Peace organization circled a petition to "Defend academic freedom. Defend the right to talk about boycott, divestment, and sanctions."
According to the petition:
See also
- Academic boycott of South Africa
- Boycott, Divestment and SanctionsBoycott, Divestment and SanctionsBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions refers to a campaign first initiated on 9 July 2005 by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organizations in support of the Palestinian cause ".....
- Disinvestment from IsraelDisinvestment from IsraelDisinvestment from Israel is a campaign conducted by religious and political entities which aims to use disinvestment to pressure the government of Israel to put "an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories captured during the 1967 military campaign." The disinvestment campaign is...
- Economic and political boycotts of IsraelEconomic and political boycotts of IsraelBoycotts of Israel are economic and political cultural campaigns or actions that seek a selective or total cutting of ties with the State of Israel...
- International Academic Friends of IsraelInternational Academic Friends of IsraelThe International Academic Friends of Israel is a non-profit organization of leading academics and scientists set up to support the free and open exchange of ideas within the international academic community,, and to ensure that Israeli academics are not excluded from that exchange...
- New antisemitism
- Sanctions against Iranian scientistsSanctions against Iranian scientistsScientific sanctions against Iranians include all actions taken to directly or indirectly suppress Iranian scientific community. United States and several other western countries, their scientific communities and companies have been actively involved in suppression of Iranian scientific community...
External links
- Official Stop the Boycott campaign website
- Palestinian campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel
- Engage: A group campaigning against a boycott of Israel
- The Academic Boycott of Israel: Why Britain by Ronnie Fraser, Jerusalem Center for Public AffairsJerusalem Center for Public AffairsThe Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is a public policy think tank devoted to research and analysis of critical issues facing the Middle East. The center is located in Jerusalem, Israel...
- Anti-Zionism and antisemitism: cosmopolitan reflections – David Hirsh
- How to Fight Anti-Israeli Campaigns on Campus by Manfred GerstenfeldManfred GerstenfeldManfred Gerstenfeld is an Austrian-born Israeli author and political activist.-Biography:Manfred Gerstenfeld was born in Vienna, grew up in Amsterdam and moved to Israel in 1968. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Gerstenfeld was a board member of the Israel...
- 2007–2008: Another Year of Global Academic Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism by Manfred GerstenfeldManfred GerstenfeldManfred Gerstenfeld is an Austrian-born Israeli author and political activist.-Biography:Manfred Gerstenfeld was born in Vienna, grew up in Amsterdam and moved to Israel in 1968. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Gerstenfeld was a board member of the Israel...