Wednesday, May 17, 2006
A press release [PDF] from The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom:
The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom (IAB) at Bar Ilan University, established last April to combat the Association of University Teachers-United Kingdom's resolution to boycott Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities, warns that a silent boycott is already taking place between UK and Israeli academics.
The latest example of this silent boycott began last Friday, May 12, 2006, when Prof. Richard Seaford, an English professor from the University of Exeter, UK, was asked to review a book for the Israeli journal Scripta Classica Israelica. Dr. Daniela Dueck from the Department of Classical Studies at Bar-Ilan University, who serves as the book review editor corresponded with Prof. Seaford, and suggested that he review "The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece", by Prof. D.M. Schaps, of Bar-Ilan University's Department of Classics. Dueck received the following response to her email:
Dear Daniela Dueck,
Alas I am unable to accept your kind invitation, for reasons that you may not like. I have, along with many other British academics, signed the academic boycott of Israel, in the face of the brutal and illegal expansionism, and the slow-motion ethnic cleansing, being practised by your government. There is of course nothing personal in this. I am aware of the honest arguments for and against a boycott, and that even some Israeli academics support the boycott and many do not. Whatever your views, I hope you will understand that my view is based on a widely shared moral outrage. You are welcome to report my position (if you wish) to anyone you may like to.
With best wishes,
Richard Seaford
This is not the first case of silent boycotts...
In June 2003, the UK Daily Telegraph reported that Andrew Wilkie, an Oxford University professor of pathology and a fellow of Pembroke College, provoked outrage by rejecting an application from an Israeli PhD student at Tel Aviv University purely because of his nationality. Wilkie claimed that he and many other British academics were not prepared to take on Israelis because of the "gross human rights abuses" he claims that they inflict on Palestinians (Link).
A year before, Mona Baker, a professor of linguistics at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), dismissed Gideon Toury and Miriam Shlesinger from their minor roles on two translation journals owned by her company because they worked for Israeli universities (Link) (Link). Mona Baker's campaign calling to boycott Israeli academic institutions still continues (Link).
The IAB opposes academic boycotts and political censure and believes that such boycotts have no place in the academic community. Scholarship and research, and their expression in the open and free exchange of ideas, are among the foundations of civilization, and without them there can be no true advancement of human knowledge.
The IAB calls on UK academics and the members of NAFTHE to engage in open discussion and, if need be, even debate with representatives of Israeli universities and academic institutions, in order to continue to support academic freedom.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Prof. Richard Seaford, English professor from the University of Exeter, UK - Bigotry early adopter.
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This is not the first boycott of Jewish products of some kind by people who think the Jews did something terrible.
The same people never boycott goods of peoples that did the same things as the Jews or ACTUALLY did the things the Jews did not really do.
Is it anti-Semitism? I would love to hear what these people do consider anti-Semitism.
And yet, I'll bet that these same people would never considering boycotting China, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Egypt or (God Forbid!) Saudi Arabia, despite those countries' abysmal human rights records.
OHG, my security code # starts with 666. Gaaaagk!
On a more serious level, it boggles the mind that these smug, self-righteous academics have misread the Palestinian situation so badly that they have exactly turned the issue inside out and are praising the perpetrators and victimizing the victims, the Israelis. I never thought I'd live to see even the English turn and become so bull-headed and insensitive and blind to what's really going on. Unbelievable!
Does anyone keep an authoritative list of boycotters so we can boycott them back if the opportunity arises?
And what I really like is that every one of them, if asked, would wholeheartedly and unreservedly denounce McCarthyism!
It's a very sad information to me. I myself am a (minor) classical scholar and in my work I am drawing quite heavily on Seaford's findings. Never expected him also to be one these 'useful idiots'. It appears that nothing has changed since the 50-es, when many leading Western-European and American scholars, artists and philosophers used to fall in love with uncle Jo Stalin while at the same time condemning the brutality of capitalistic imperialism.
Reading about other 'silent boycotts' only strengthens me in my opinion that all this is nothing more but yet another, modern (or perhaps post-modern) face of good old antisemitism.
Just think about it....You are born as a refugee, you grow up as a refugee and also die as such. This is how the palestinians are living today.On the other side of the coin, you are very lucky to be a jew. Wherever you are born you automatically become a citizen of Israel. You jewish brothers will demolish Palestinian households to make room for you in your promised Jewish land.
I am a muslim. But my religion doesnot automatically make me a citizen of Saudi Arabia. It must be good if the British people become aware of what is going on in the Jewish nation. Let the world know about it. Palestinians need a homeland, which we all have.
"You jewish brothers will demolish Palestinian households to make room for you in your promised Jewish land"
This is untrue.
The fact that Palestinians are still refugees is a shame that falls on the states that house them and refuse to absorb them, not the state they want to destroy, Israel. It is also the fault of the Palestinians themselves that they do not have their own state to return to. That is an issue that should have been settled long ago.
Jews have been persecuted *as Jews* for many centuries. It is just that they have a state they can return to *as Jews*. Muslims cannot say the same.