Israeli Science Renews Ties to European Union, Defying Calls for Boycott

The Chronicle:

Under an agreement signed today by Israeli and European Union officials, Israel will contribute about $607-million to the European Union’s six-year, $69-billion research budget, known as the Seventh Framework Program. Israeli scientists will also be eligible to compete for financing from the newly created European Research Council.

Israel has collaborated with the European Union’s framework programs since the previous installment, which ran from 2002 to 2006, and the 27-member bloc is Israel’s second-largest source of science funds after the Israel Science Foundation. But the renewal of the association comes as some in the EU are seeking to sever academic ties with Israel, not foster them.

US chancellors slam boycott

Ynetnews:

American university and college chancellors met with Education Minister Yuli Tamir on Monday evening in Tel Aviv, and agreed to work together to forge academic cooperation between Israeli and American academic institutions.

During her speech, Tamir addressed the boycott resolution passed against Israel in May by Britain's main academic union, saying, 'Not only is the boycott misguided, it is also a destructive tool. It targets the people who keep their doors open even during the worst of times, the academics, who talk with Palestinians. It's an ironic step.' ...

Mark G. Yudof, Chancellor of the University of Texas, described the boycott as "a genuinely stupid move".

"I don't see any boycotts being proposed of African countries, or a boycott being proposed against Libya," he said.

"It's a double standard in my view. As the minister said, it's ironic to target the community which keeps dialogue open during national disputes. I think you'll see many American academics joining Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, in his condemnation of the boycott," Yudof added.

"My English friends told me I shouldn't take the boycott too seriously, that the group is not mainstream. But all I can do is judge them on their name and their actions," he added. ...

During a question and answer session, a number of academics told Tamir they were unhappy with the US State Department's decision to issue Americans wishing to visit Israel with a travel warning, saying the decision impeded academic cooperation. Tamir agreed, and added that the Israeli government has attempted to overturn the decision.

More on boycott opposition

Inside Higher Ed :

Opposition continues to grow to the push by leaders of Britain’s faculty union to have professors there boycott academics and universities in Israel. The Guardian reported that faculty members at the University of Oxford are demanding a full vote on the issue. Support for the boycott has generally been strongest at smaller conclaves of faculty leaders, and universitywide votes have suggested that a majority of professors oppose the boycott. On the other side of the pond, the Association of American Universities is the latest group to condemn the boycott. A statement issued Friday said on behalf of its 62 research universities in the United States and Canada said: “Academic boycotts are inimical to the free exchange of ideas that is essential to academic freedom. Members of the academic profession should seek to preserve academic freedom, not restrict it.”

Alan M. Dershowitz: An Academic Hijacking

SPME: :

In a world in which dissident academics are murdered in Iran, tortured in Egypt, imprisoned in China and fired in many other parts of the world, the British Union decided to boycott only academics from a country with as much academic freedom as in Britain and far more academic freedom -- and more actual academic dissent -- than in any Arab or Muslim country. Indeed, Arabs have more academic (and journalistic) freedom in Israel, even in the West Bank, than in any Arab or Muslim nation.

But these union activists couldn't care less about academic freedom, or any other kind of freedom for that matter. Nor do they care much about the actual plight of the Palestinians. If they did, they would be supporting the Palestinian Authority in its efforts to make peace with Israel based on mutual compromise, rather than Hamas in its futile efforts to destroy Israel as well as the PA.

What they care about -- and all they seem to care about -- is Israel, which they despise, without regard to what the Jewish state actually does or fails to do. The fact that this boycott effort is being undertaken at precisely the time when Israel has ended the occupation of Gaza and is reaching out to the PA, and even to Syria, in an effort to make peace proves that the boycott is not intended to protest specific Israeli policies or actions, but rather to delegitimize and demonize Israel as a democratic Jewish nation. One union activist said on a BBC radio show that "Israel is worse than Stalinist Russia."..."

It is fair to say, therefore, that the British boycott appears to be backfiring. British academics are on notice that if they try to isolate Israeli academics, it is they -- the British academics -- who will end up being isolated from some of the world's most prominent academics and scientists.

No one wants that to happen. Academics and scientists should collaborate with each other in the interests of promoting knowledge. The hope is that this ill-conceived boycott will be voted down by general membership of the university and college union, and that those radicals who are pushing it will be delegitimized in the eyes of the vast majority of British academics who will not want to see their union hijacked by single-issue bigots.

On British moral superiority

Haaretz: By Yossi Sarid

UNISON, the trade union that represents 1.3 million workers in the United Kingdom, decided yesterday to impose an economic and cultural boycott on Israel. Britain's National Union of Journalists made a similar decision in April, and the University and College Union decided to recommend that its 120,000 members boycott our institutions of higher education [not precisely]. ...

...The ADL and the British academics have also forgotten two other countries, which over the past four years have harmed human rights and been involved in war crimes more than any others. Ladies and gentlemen, you have totally forgotten about the United States and the United Kingdom.

These upstanding nations have felled hundreds of thousands of victims in Iraq and Afghanistan; they have turned four million people into refugees who are now knocking on their locked gates; they have made suspects vanish, of whom some were dispatched to shadowy countries to be interrogated and tortured while others were sent to Guantanamo, and this week, American judges - even military judges - ruled that these were offenses that the American constitution cannot tolerate.

Granted, the Bush-Cheney administration is the one leading this black flag brigade, but the poodle follows after the bulldog. And up to now, there have been no initiatives to boycott American products or American universities. The distinguished British professors would have done well to have first disavowed any contact with their colleagues across the Atlantic; after all, America and not Israel is the leader of the Free World. It sets the example. Others watch it and follow its lead.

But why even cross the ocean, if the learned academics already live and work in a country that is a partner in crime to its bigger ally? Those who are busying themselves with boycotts and ostracism would have acted more rationally and fairly if they had first boycotted the products of their own country. If they had boycotted the institutions of higher education that employ them. If they had boycotted themselves.

LTE: Is Boycotting Israelis an Anti-Semitic Act?

New York Times: Re “A Boycott Built on Bias” (column, June 17):

As an American Jew who shares Thomas L. Friedman’s critical assessment of Israel’s policies toward the occupied territories, I am very slow to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, like Mr. Friedman, I have been unable to come up with a better explanation for the proposed British academic boycott of Israeli universities.

The idea is spectacularly wrongheaded, not only for the examples of selective sympathy that Mr. Friedman enumerates (and many more that could be added), but also because boycotts are so antagonistic to the ordinary ethics of the academic community.

Israeli universities are no more complicit in the injustices wrought by their nation’s government than are the universities of any nation — including our own — whose government is rightfully subject to serious criticism.

And if any effort is warranted to prompt Israeli scholars to oppose their government more forcefully, that initiative should surely take the form of engagement and dialogue, not ostracism.

Peter M. Shane
Columbus, Ohio, June 17, 2007
The writer is a professor at Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University.

UK trade union backs total boycott of Israel

Ynetnews:

The UK's largest trade union, UNISON, advocated on Wednesday a total boycott of Israel over its continued occupation of Palestinian territories.
A statement issued by delegates meeting in Brighton read: 'The conference believes that ending the occupation demands concerted and sustained pressure upon Israel including an economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott'.
In addition, delegates called on the British government to press for an arms embargo against Israel.

Against Academic Boycotts...

From Dissent:

On May 30, Britain's 120,000-strong University and College Union voted to endorse a motion to boycott Israeli universities, calling on British academics to condemn 'the complicity of Israeli academics in the occupation.' In the upcoming weeks, local branches will decide on whether to uphold the endorsement. Unison, Britain's largest union, has also announced that it intends to vote on a similar Israel boycott. In the forthcoming Summer 2007 issue (out the first week of July), Martha Nussbaum provides an impassioned argument against academic boycotts. Because of the imminent—and consequential—nature of the debate, we are publishing her article online in advance of the issue. - editors.

I DO NOT PLAN to discuss the specific facts concerning boycotts of Israeli academic institutions and individuals. There are three reasons for this silence. First, I believe that philosophers should be pursuing philosophical principles—defensible general principles that can be applied to a wide range of cases. We cannot easily tell whether our principles are good ones by looking at a single case only, without inquiring as to whether the principles we propose could be applied to all similar cases.

Second, I am made uneasy by the single-minded focus on Israel. Surely it is unseemly for Americans to discuss boycotts of another country on the other side of the world without posing related questions about American policies and actions that are not above moral scrutiny. Nor should we fail to investigate relevantly comparable cases concerning other nations. For example, one might consider possible responses to the genocide of Muslim civilians in the Indian state of Gujarat in the year 2002, a pogrom organized by the state government, carried out by its agents, and given aid and comfort by the national government of that time (no longer in power). I am disturbed by the world’s failure to consider such relevantly similar cases. I have heard not a whisper about boycotting Indian academic institutions and individuals, and I have also, more surprisingly, heard nothing about the case in favor of an international boycott of U.S. academic institutions and individuals. I am not sure that there is anything to be said in favor of a boycott of Israeli scholars and institutions that could not be said, and possibly with stronger justification, for similar actions toward the United States and especially India and/or the state of Gujarat.

I would not favor an academic boycott in any of these cases, but I think that they ought to be considered together, and together with yet other cases in which governments are doing morally questionable things. One might consider, for example, the Chinese government’s record on human rights; South Korea’s lamentable sexism and indifference to widespread female infanticide and feticide; the failure of a large number of the world’s nations, including many, though not all, Arab nations, to take effective action in defense of women’s bodily integrity and human equality; and many other cases. Indeed, I note that gross indifference to the lives and health of women has never been seriously considered as a reason for any boycott, a failure of impartiality that struck me even in the days of the South Africa boycott. Eminent thinkers alleged that the case of South Africa was unique because a segment of the population was systematically unequal under the law, a situation that of course was, and still is, that of women in a large number of countries. By failing to consider all the possible applications of our principles, if we applied them impartially, we are failing to deliberate well about the choice of principles. For a world in which there was a boycott of all U.S., Indian, and Israeli scholars, and no doubt many others as well, let us say those of China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia (on grounds of sexism), and Pakistan (on the same grounds, though there has been a bit of progress lately) would be quite different from the world in which only scholars from one small nation were being boycotted, and this difference seems relevant to the choice of principles. ...

Scholars who have strong views about the Israeli government would be well advised, I think, to focus on the tactic of organized (nonviolent and nondisruptive) public protest, directed at the government and its key actors. If an academic institution in Israel has committed a specific reprehensible act, then censure is an appropriate tactic. If an individual member of an academic institution has committed reprehensible acts, then those acts should be publicized and criticized by anyone who wants to criticize them, and one might also oppose rewarding such an individual with an honorary degree. I have argued that any more negative action, such as firing the individual, should be undertaken only in a narrow range of time-honored cases, such as criminal acts or sexual harassment. Meanwhile, all involved should focus on stating the facts to the general public, and making good arguments about those facts. As for the academic boycott, it is a poor choice of strategies, and some of the justifications offered for it are downright alarming. Economic boycotts are occasionally valuable. Symbolic boycotts, I believe, are rarely valuable by comparison with the alternatives I have mentioned, and the boycott in this case seems to me very weakly grounded.

Yeshiva President Richard Joel blasts UCU boycott

-Yeshiva University News :

Yeshiva University President Richard Joel blasted Great Britain’s University and College Union today for the group’s proposed boycott of Israeli universities and academics and ban on international collaborations with Israelis, calling the move a “hypocritical act” and a “threat to open societies everywhere.” And, citing his own institution’s longstanding ties with Israel dating back prior to the very establishment of the State, Mr. Joel “proudly” added Yeshiva University’s name to those on the boycott list.

Mr. Joel said: “This boycott is a threat not only to Israeli academics but also to open societies everywhere. As president of Yeshiva University, an American university that has immutable ties to Israel, I proudly add our institution to the roster of universities on the boycott list and decline to participate in any activity from which Israeli academics are excluded.

"This is a hypocritical act that defies the fundamental raison d’être of a university. This boycott erodes the sanctity of the academic sphere by introducing illegitimate political positions that amount to political blackmail. Moreover, it is irresponsible and detracts from the noble charge of the academy to enlighten and elevate intellectual discourse and advance humankind.

..."

Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger on British University and College Union Boycott

SPME: Published in: Columbia News
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/07/06/boycott.html

As a citizen, I am profoundly disturbed by the recent vote by Britain's new University and College Union to advance a boycott against Israeli academic institutions. As a university professor and president, I find this idea utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment. In seeking to quarantine Israeli universities and scholars this vote threatens every university committed to fostering scholarly and cultural exchanges that lead to enlightenment, empathy, and a much-needed international marketplace of ideas.

At Columbia I am proud to say that we embrace Israeli scholars and universities that the UCU is now all too eager to isolate -- as we embrace scholars from many countries regardless of divergent views on their governments' policies. Therefore, if the British UCU is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish. Boycott us, then, for we gladly stand together with our many colleagues in British, American and Israeli universities against such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education.

The Boycott and the Palestinians

AJC Letter in Financial Times

Sir, While commendably rejecting the boycott call against Israel by the British University and College Union, you still manage to take some serious shots at Israel (editorial, May 31). Nowhere, however, amid charges aplenty against Israel, the "pro-Israel lobby in the US" and "Israel's irredentist right" is there a single reference to the challenges Israel faces in seeking a peace accord with the Palestinians. It is as if the only hurdle to achieving peaceful conflict resolution is Israel's "self-defeating" policy.

Speaking of self-defeating policies, what is to be made of the chaos, anarchy and violence in Gaza since Israel's total withdrawal in 2005? Or the smuggling in of weapons, the building of tunnels and the firing of thousands of Qassam rockets at southern Israel? Or Hamas rule, which is committed to Israel's annihilation and replacement by a Sharia-based Islamic state?

Polls in Israel consistently reveal support for a two-state solution with the Palestinians. But those strong desires alone will not yield an accord unless the self-defeating policies of the Palestinians come to an end.
David A. Harris
Executive Director
American Jewish Committee

Malicious Boycotts

From The New York Times (Editorial):

The University and College Union, a newly formed British union of college teachers, shamefully called last week for a boycott on contacts and exchanges with Israeli academic institutions. That follows on the shameful call in April by the National Union of Journalists in Britain to boycott Israeli goods.

It is hard to imagine two organizations that should be less given to such nonsense. Who would respect the judgment of a scholar who selects or rejects colleagues on political grounds? Who would trust the dispatches of a reporter who has been openly engaged against one side of a conflict? The unions argue that they have an obligation to demonstrate labor-union solidarity with the oppressed, as they did in opposing apartheid. That is absurd.

First, Israeli journalists and academics are among the most dedicated critics of their own society. Second, the lack of similar “solidarity” by these unions with any other oppressed or suffering people in the world, and there are plenty, reduces these gestures to an exercise in hypocrisy, or worse.

It is good to see that most respected British journalists, scholars and students — including the preponderance of British editorial writers and the heads of Oxford, Cambridge and 20 other top universities — as well as representatives of all major political parties condemned these malicious gestures.

Critical thinking and well-thought-out criticism are intrinsic to good scholarship and good journalism. These boycotts represent neither. Posturing like this only alienates the very forces in Israeli society that should be encouraged and offends the calling and honor of journalism and academia.

Boycotting Israel as "moral masturbation"

From Haaretz:

Just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that you're a British academic. You believe strongly that the occupation must end, that the Palestinians should have an independent state, that Israel's military and diplomatic policies are wrongheaded to the point of immorality.

What to do? Simple. Find the one group within Israeli society which has consistently, vigorously and courageously campaigned against the occupation since its inception.

Then attack them....

Choose your victim with care. Select the one group in Israel which has taken substantive physical, professional, legal and personal risks, which has defied the spirit of Israeli nationalism and the letter of Israeli law, in order to seek out Palestinians to search for equitable solutions.

Select the one group which has, from the very beginning, spoken out eloquently for the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination, to freedom from Israeli domination, to freedom from disproportionate and often indiscriminate use of force, to freedom from social injustice.

Then denounce them.

Decide that your moral vision fully empowers you to declare Israeli professors and other university and college faculty to be unworthy of practicing their calling. All of them.

That is, perhaps, the real beauty of the British campaign to declare a quarantine over Israeli academics.

You really must envy the U.K. far-left for its blindness. Its consummate inability to see more than one side, which is to say, its demonstrated refusal to see Jews as fellow human beings...

Perhaps this is why the whole boycott campaign smacks of a uniquely far-left British brand of moral masturbation, a desperate, delusional, sterile, supremely self-contained form of non-activism that risks nothing even as it changes nothing.

There must be some reason why no one in this world does condescension better than the British far-left. There must be some reason why the British far-left manages to satisfy itself with a uniquely public, uniquely self-congratulatory form of ideological self-abuse.

Leftists abroad would do well to respect their Israeli counterparts for defying societal norms to work for the rights of people with whom their nation is at war. Perhaps the Israeli left deserves respect, as well, for having to do this while enduring the racist abuse of leftists abroad.