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On 6 June
2007, an email was sent around to academics and students in Israeli academic
institutions which contained an introductory text and request to sign a
petition opposing the UK
University and College Union (UCU) vote in favor of boycott resolutions.
The
following was the introductory text to the petition in the email:
Dear friends,
British academics once again decided to unite their efforts
to put an end to cruel human rights violations in the world. Unfortunately,
neither North Korea, nor Sudan, or Iran are on the agenda. Instead –Israel, and only Israel, is labelled as the global
human rights monster.
The outcome? A boycott of Israel's academic institutions. Those
institutions, which hold between 20-30% of Arab Israelis. Those institutions
whose research in the past decades has been reaching breakthroughs in the
global fight against cancer, AIDS, Tuberculosis, etc. Those institutions, which
encourage Palestinian-Israeli academic exchange, one of the few constructive
channels for dialogue and understanding.
Smells like destructive and biased intervention by a group
of people (120,000 teachers) who neither care nor know about the meaning of
human rights and the role of academic freedom in preserving them.
The
following text was written in reply to this call for signing the petition:
To the
authors of the petition against the academic boycott,
Well, I am
quite ambivalent about the whole academic boycott issue to be honest.
But, a couple things do bother me with this petition that was sent to me.
First, insofar as there is anything concretely discussed in the text of the UCU
'boycott', it is non-enforceable and in the end a purely symbolic act, unlike
the Quartet's economic boycott against the Palestinians.
Also, it annoys me that, on the one hand, they are writing petitions against
the call for academic boycott against Israeli institutions, while, on the other
hand, these authors most likely have not written any petitions against the much
more destructive and inhumane economic boycott against the entire Palestinian
society (If they have, please disabuse me of my error).
Economic boycott and the destruction of a society's entire infrastructure is
justifiable, but ‘god forbid’ anyone does anything to disturb that most holy
tower of free debate and inquiry called academia.
I would also like to know if the authors of this petition have written one
against the ongoing de-facto Israeli academic embargo against the Palestinians?
Where it takes many months to coordinate the permissions from the Israel Civil
Administration in the occupied territories—if they are even given at all—for
Palestinian academics to come to international conferences, yet it takes
perhaps one day to arrange for Israelis to participate. Many barriers enforced
by Israel
create an effective boycott against exchanges between Palestinian and
international academics. And this doesn't include the shutting down of
Palestinian universities and the closures and curfews of Palestinian cities and
villages. Quite often, even when Palestinian academics get the authorizations,
they cannot leave on the day of their flight or get over the border into Jordan, because
they can't leave their city or the West Bank/Gaza Strip due to the closures,
checkpoints, etc.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, no?
Also, I would like to know the opinion of the majority of Israeli Arab
academics and Israeli Arab students about the boycott, not just using their
name as a tool of leverage against the call to boycott...and moreover, I am
quite sure that THEY will continue to be invited to academic conferences and
such, boycott or not. Neither they, nor the Israeli academics who are known to
have taken stands against the ongoing occupation, will be impacted to the same
degree.
Further, the petition that was sent to me obfuscates the obvious issue that
one's action should be dictated at least in part by the issue of potential
efficacy...one needs to deal with each issue in a way that you think will best
facilitate change.
Personally, I think that the Israelis should think of the call for academic
boycott as a compliment...after all, it is only because the UCU understands
that Israel has real democratic institutions and mechanisms in place, promotes
itself as a Democracy, cares about its international image, and wants to be
part of the "West," that a program of boycott and divestment could
work.
An academic boycott on Sudan?
North Korea?
Would the governments of these countries even care?
Moreover, are the authors of the petition against the boycott saying that until
you do everything everywhere, you should do nothing anywhere?
Do they not understand that it was due to international pressure, calls for
boycott, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on the
Separation Barrier, by and large—as well as the growth of Israeli conscientious
objectors—that Sharon made the decision to
remove the settlers and redeploy from Gaza?
Do they not know that it was in direct response to international pressure that
the Israeli government allowed the East Jerusalem Palestinians to vote in last January’s
Palestinian Legislative Council elections?
Moreover, it seems that that even the hint of academic boycott against Israeli
academic institutions scares academia so much that it had some immediate
influence, where on May 30 it was published in the
Guardian that: “Four Israeli university presidents and several high-profile
authors today called on the Israeli government to lift its restrictions on
Palestinian students."
I am definitely NOT sure that academic boycott is the best answer, but what IS
obvious after forty years of ongoing occupation and the continual expansion of
settlements and land confiscations, is that Israelis are completely incapable
of ending the occupation without outside international pressure.
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