Protesting a protest
Update on the 26th of May: the boycott I describe below has been overturned
I don't know how big an issue this has been in the news outside the UK, but the AUT (a big university teachers' union) recently passed a motion approving a boycott of two Israeli Universities. The most comprehensive, even-handed article I've seen about this appeared recently in the Christian Science Monitor, and it's worth a read.
The good news is that the really terrible proposal that was put before the AUT—a boycott of all Israeli academics—did not pass. This is a small consolation though, because looking at the weak justification justification given for the choice of targets (Haifa University in particular, where every detail of the accusations appears to be factually unfounded) the motion that passed sounds more like a version of the original proposal that was cut down to make it palatable than a case of well-focussed political action.
I can not state in strong enough terms my opposition to this kind of political action. The problem is not the cause it is supposed to be in aid of (which happens to be one for which I have quite a lot of sympathy), but the bluntness of the instrument. It punishes every single faculty member (and by extension many students) at a couple of universities for the policies of a government that many of them do not support. It's also highly questionable whether it will achieve anything positive, as it risks marginalising the subset of Israel's Jewish population most likely to oppose the occupation of the Territories, and one of the subsets most likely to involved in productive, bridge-building co-operation with Palestinians. I find it particularly interesting in this respect that Al-Quds University opposes the boycott as well.
I'm not quite ready to go as far as some have and label this action as anti-Semitism, but it does tie into a general trend in the British Left that worries me deeply and pushes me away from a group that I used to sympathise with strongly. It seems increasingly common for people to mix up opposition to specific policies of the Israeli government with opposition to all things Israeli and the Israeli people themselves (many of whom voted against this government), and in turn confuse sentiments about Israelis with sentiments about Jews, the majority of whom world-wide live outside Israel, are not Israeli nationals, and have no influence at all over that country's politics. I feel that so far most of what I'm seeing from the British Left is in the middle of this, as opposed to being at the anti-Semitic extreme, but it's a step in the wrong direction, and I do feel that it's making a kind of casual anti-Semitism—mainly taking the form of a belief that Jews are automatically racist, ironically enough—socially acceptable at the same time as other forms of racism are gradaully becoming less socially acceptable.
Back to the point at hand, I'm furious about this AUT action, but I really don't know what I can do about it. I suppose the one thing is to refuse to work with anyone who I find out actually supports this boycott. As a grad student I am far too unimportant for this to have any real impact, but it's the best I can think of.
Comments
It's also highly questionable whether it will achieve anything positive, as it risks marginalising the subset of Israel's Jewish population most likely to oppose the occupation of the Territories, and one of the subsets most likely to involved in productive, bridge-building co-operation with Palestinians.
This is often true with boycotts. I think part of the rationale is that the universities might then be more motivated to push for change. However, I'm generally of the opinion that doing the bridge-building leads to much greater change than a boycott can. Another example is the prohibition on U.S. publishers (including scientific journals) publishing work from Iran, Cuba, etc. It doesn't make sense to turn away the people who are probably most sympathetic to us.
However, I will note that when I went to a physics school at Hebrew University, and got some funding from the school, I was a bit uneasy, and worried that this could be construed as my approval of Israeli policies. Then I remembered that I don't exactly approve of my own government, but I still live in the U.S. and get paid by NASA and NSF money, so whatever.
What was more tricky was when it looked like the eeee! would have a chance to go to Iran to meet with some astronomers there about constructing telescopes. Again, I fully support building bridges, but I was very uncomfortable with the idea of him going on an official trip to a country where women are second-class citizens.
I understand your difficulty regarding going to a country, but I don't think it's the same as this boycott.
To clarify: the boycott that the AUT passed is a ban on working with anyone from Haifa or Bar-Ilan universities, and the one that was proposed but nto passed was a ban on working with any Israeli [full disclosure: depending on how they defined this it could include me]. The equivalent would be if instead of saying "...I was very uncomfortable with the idea of him going on an official trip to a country..." you had said "I was uncomfortable with the idea of him working with a researcher in that country".
I hope that makes it a little clearer why I'm so outraged by this, at the same time as feeling that someone who decides not to go to Israel may well be taking reasonable steps consistent with their view of the country.
To clarify: the boycott that the AUT passed is a ban on working with anyone from Haifa or Bar-Ilan universities
Ah, okay, for some reason I thought it just prohibited going to those universities.
Either way, you're absolutely right to be outraged.