Monday, May 28, 2007
Haaretz has a good editorial on the British boycotting business: Battle for Britain
On Wednesday, representatives of the new British University and College Union (UCU) will be meeting in Bournemouth. On the agenda is another proposal to boycott Israel's academic institutions. These proposals have become as regular and as predictable as Qassam attacks on Sderot. The fact that studies at the Sapir Academic College in Sderot are not taking place because of the constant rocket fire from Gaza, even though the college is not in occupied territory and Gaza is no longer occupied, apparently does not bother British academia. The fact that Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Authority, does not recognize even pre-1967 Israel, and commits acts of terror against civilians, does not matter either. These nuances did not stop one boycott initiator from saying last week that justice in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is entirely on one side...
...On the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, British academia should look realistically at peace efforts in the Middle East: Over the past decade, Israel has elected governments that have expressed the desire of a majority of Israelis for a bilateral solution of two states for two peoples and a withdrawal from most of the settlements. The withdrawal from Gaza was to have been the first stage. The victory of Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, cut off the process.
The anti-Zionist winds blowing in Europe, mainly in academia and in Britain, strengthen the position that the very birth of the Jewish state was a mistake. The European hard left regards the Law of Return as the root of all evil; however, without acknowledging the Jewish character of the State of Israel, there is not even a basis for dialogue. British academia is in fact demanding that Israel democratically cease to exist as a Zionist entity, and that it be swallowed up in the non-democratic region in order to pander to the latest trend.
The British blog "Engage" was set up in order to fight the boycott initiatives. Here is the link:
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/index.php
Unfortunately, the blog is managed, I believe, by intellectuals who keep a tight rein over the comments for fear of upsetting the delicate balance they are trying to maintain between several trends within the largely inscrutable British Left. It means that one cannot hope to post robust criticism of British academia or intellectual chattering classes. It is still a good source of reliable information about the boycott movement.
It's an excellent site and one I have linked to a number of times in the past. I had always resisted permalinking them since they used to have a banner link to a site encouraging Israeli soldiers to become "refuseniks" -- a line I would not cross. Come to think of it, I see now they have that and a couple of other objectionable links just on their link page, so I will consider adding them again (for what it's worth).