Brit Union of Academics Votes to Boycott Israeli Scholars

First it was the AUT leadership, voting a boycott of Israeli scholars, and they were rebuffed, to say the least, by their general membership.



Then it was NATFHE, another union of academics, voting to boycott Israeli scholars, but they soon merged with the AUT, leaving a vote of their directors as meaningless.



But now the leadership of the combined unions, under the general grouping, the UCU, have voted to support a boycott of Israeli academics.



I strongly oppose their views on two grounds:

1. First, I am not convinced that Israel is doing much wrong with its occupation of the west bank. Failure to occupy the west bank would have been like telling robbers that if they get caught, the only punishment is that they must give back what they have stolen and that there will be no further deterrence. That's just plain silly because it doesn't discourage robbers from trying to steal again and again.
   
   
   
   Israel repelled an attack in 1967, only to have to fight another war in 1973. After that war, they said (and quite rightly under both international law and following just plain common sense) if you folks are going to keep using these lands as launching pads, both literally and figuratively, we're going to hold them until you renounce such plans. Such renunciation has not occurred.
   
   
   
   Nevertheless, Israel has been open and democratic. Yes, it cut off payments to the Palestinian Authority once Hamas was elected, and for bloody good reason: Hamas has as one of its primary goals the eradication of Israel (and, incidentally, the Jews who live there). There is no earthly reason why the UCU should expect Israel to continue making payments to a sworn enemy. If they really disagree, let them all contribute 10% of their salaries to the US Republican party.
2. But even if you don't accept my first point, this one is compelling: in the name of academic freedom, there is no justifiable reason for this boycott. If the UCU wants to single out academics for boycott, let them single out those from China or Iraq or Iran or Egypt or any other place where there are documented human rights abuses or flagrant violations of the concept of academic freedom. Academic freedom says that we scholars should assess the works of others on their merits, not on the basis of the politics of their home country.
   
   
   
   Instead, the UCU picks on Israeli academics. There can be only one reason for this: anti-semitism, pure and simple. And it is frightening.

For more, please see this, which summarizes the motions that were passed by the UCU Congress.



Also, please see this from Engage, which says

1 This is not a decision to institute a boycott. That decision can only be made by the whole membership through a ballot. That was the commitment on which Sally Hunt was elected as General Secretary. Congress also backed a policy which does not allow a boycott of Israeli academic institutions unless it is called for by Israeli campus trade unions. Which it won't be.



2 UCU Congress has today voted for a roadshow touring colleges and universities drumming up support for an exclusion of Israelis - and only Israelis - from our campuses, our conferences and our journals. The union is mandated to finance this tour and to stack the debate in favour of a pro-boycott outcome.

And also see this for a reaction.



And one final point: where is the outrage from non-Jewish, non-Israeli organizations? I am embarrassed and appalled by the (so far) lack of responses from such groups. Am I the only gentile in the universe who sees things this way?



[h/t to MA for the links]



Update #1: also see this from Melanie Phillips and this from Little Green Footballs.



Update #2: Both Melanie Phillips and Normblog quote this from Ha'aretz:

On Wednesday, representatives of the new British University and College Union (UCU) will be meeting in Bournemouth. On the agenda is another proposal to boycott Israel's academic institutions. These proposals have become as regular and as predictable as Qassam attacks on Sderot. The fact that studies at the Sapir Academic College in Sderot are not taking place because of the constant rocket fire from Gaza, even though the college is not in occupied territory and Gaza is no longer occupied, apparently does not bother British academia. The fact that Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Authority, does not recognize even pre-1967 Israel, and commits acts of terror against civilians, does not matter either. These nuances did not stop one boycott initiator from saying last week that justice in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is entirely on one side.

Norm continued,

This editorial in Haaretz rightly identifies the thinking of the would-be boycotters as impelled by a desire to de-legitimize Israel - identifies it with 'the position that the very birth of the Jewish state was a mistake'.

Update #3: And check out Stephen Pollard's column about boycotts of Israel.



Update #4: Rénald writes,

I find this totally ridiculous! Why of all people attack the scholars??? Why not the bakers, bankers and doughnut makers? It would make as much sense.



Boycotting scholars is like boycotting knowledge...it can only lead to ignorance or maybe they are already there!

to which BenS adds,

Of course, but why boycott any Jewish institution? The boycotters are playing copycat and operating like an ignorant herd….which they are. I’ll make one exception for these ignorant hypocrites: let them boycott for themselves and their families any medical or scientific advancement created or produced by Jews -— but being hypocrites, they won’t do that.

Update #5 Tim Worstall says that English academic unions are not worth worrying about.

The academic unions are well known to be populated and run by people with any number of very peculiar bees buzzing under their bonnets. The rest of us look upon them almost fondly, as examples of a well meaning but possibly futile form of Care in the Community.



The idea that we should take seriously anything that comes from such obvious nutters simply never occurs to those of us outside the hallowed halls of academe.

I hope he's right, but the UCU is still wrong and very unscholarly.

Comments

[RandomGuy]

I personally believed that the whole state of Israel was a mistake and it's one of the reasons why their so many wacko Muslims blowing stuff up. But boycotting scholars is kind of silly thing to do.

[Joshua]

Geras writes:

"This editorial in Haaretz rightly identifies the thinking of the would-be boycotters as impelled by a desire to de-legitimize Israel - identifies it with 'the position that the very birth of the Jewish state was a mistake'."

In this, Geras is quite correct and the delegitimization of Israel isn't only confined to the semi-literate like "Random Guy" above. This from a piece in the Guardian by a lecturer in the department of government at the LSE:

"Israel is a state founded on discrimination. Israel privileges Zionist-Jews, and subordinates and dispossesses Palestinians and Arabs."

http://tinyurl.com/3832jv

[Joshua]

N.B. Joshua used to post here as Pooh.

[Pooh]

"I personally believed that the whole state of Israel was a mistake and it's one of the reasons why their so many wacko Muslims blowing stuff up"

1) Jews have been blamed for virtually every war in modern history. Like Mel Gibson, when an anti-Semite decides to embark on an anti-Semitic tirade such charges are invariably at the top of the list. As Begin once put it: "Gentiles kill gentiles and they come for the Jews."

Before World War II, we Jews were told by you gentiles that we should "go home to Israel". Now we are in Israel, we are told to go home to Europe and America (but never the Arab nations. Strange that, or not).

2) Muslims "blow stuff up" because they are encouraged to do so by their religion. If you want to stop them "blowing stuff up" you should make a start by tackling the evil inherent in much of today's Islam. If people were entitled to "blow stuff up" because of a grievance, real or otherwise, no group would have had more justification than the Jews. And yet, while virtually every nation in Europe either actively and willingly collaborated in the mass-murder of six million Jews and the U.S. and the UK, at the very best, displayed utter insouciance, I am not aware of any Jews blowing themselves up in Amsterdam, Warsaw, Vilnius, Oslo and Budapest.

3) Israel's creation was a direct result of that collaboration mentioned above as well of course as the ethnic cleansing of almost one million Jews by the Arab nations. If you want to complain about Israel then, you should address your complaints to your grandparents, the people who allowed such terrible events to occur.

4) Why do you object to Israel's existence alone? After all, the world nearly faced a nuclear conflagration a few years ago because of the arrogant belligerence of India and Pakistan. Both America and Canada were nations founded as a result of massive ethnic cleansing and genocide and both countries have participated in the most terrible acts over the years: from the nuclear holocaust of Hiroshima to the mass-murder of German civilians at Dresden and from the rape of Vietnam to that illegal invasion of Iraq which has resulted in the deaths of countless thousands of innocent Iraqis. And why should much of Europe have any moral right to exist after the Holocaust?

But that it is Israel's existence alone among the nations of the world that is objected to is also a sign of profound Jew-hatred.

5) Israel is the Jewish homeland. We Jews have a continuous connection to her that is thousands of years old. We have far more right to her than the white man or the yellow man or the black man has to the United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand or indeed any country in Latin America.

6) To suggest that Israel is a "mistake" is to deligitimise her. To deligitimise her is to call for her destruction and to do that is to incite mass-murder. I think it outrageous that your comment has been allowed to stand here.