As I understand it, Fania comes from the Israeli left. But it heartens my faith in humanity that she is not buying any of the madness coming from the British Association of University Teachers – who have boycotted two Israeli universities.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111499921857221877-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=israel+and+british%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29
On a purely pragmatic level, this boycott will not work
with Israelis. Despite its socialist pedigree, it smacks of the
finger-rapping British governess. It oozes moral superiority. England
expects every Israeli academic to do his duty? Thank you, but we’re not impressed. We are too deeply entangled with British history ourselves.
Secondly, there is the issue of singling out Israel. Oh yes, Israel is occupying the West Bank and — until August — also the Gaza Strip. The occupation has lasted 38 years, and it has caused Palestinians much suffering. Their human and civil rights are being breached. About 60% of Israelis who answered the most recent polls are willing to end occupation in return for a secure peace. True, a large minority of Israelis still wishes to keep some of the West Bank under Israeli rule, and the University of Bar Ilan sends lecturers to settlements there. That is apparently a sin.
It is obviously a far greater sin than wholesale brutality, or else the AUT would have boycotted Chinese universities before and after
Tiananmen Square, or Russian universities as the occupation of Chechnya grew bloody. Israel is singled out because it’s easy game — and because the AUT is not really in the business of promoting peace or reconciliation. It is in the business of delegitimizing Israel.
Thirdly, there is the timing. The boycott vote was held on the eve of
Passover. This, in British terms, is a crime far worse than
discrimination or hypocrisy: it is bad taste. (Still, let’s try not to be so cynical as to assume that this was a premeditated way to prevent many Jewish members from attending the meeting.)
Fourthly, timing again. Israelis are now bracing themselves to
disengage from Gaza. The majority of moderate supporters of
disengagement is well represented in academia, among students and
teachers alike. To help us muster political and moral strength for the most crucial inner conflict in the history of Israeli society, our colleagues in the U.K. are giving us a little kick in the ankle. How apt.
* * *
I, therefore, have two humble requests from the British Association of University Teachers.
First, do check your facts again — assuming that all this sound and
fury is about facts at all. Second, just in case my résumé happens to please your political palate, don’t extend any kindness to me by saying that peaceniks like myself are off the hook. I am proud of being boycotted along with the University of Haifa as long as your deplorable decision stands. Don’t chaperone me back into international scholarship under the patronage of the politically correct. This, I gather, is not what John Stuart Mill had in mind.
