At the risk of sounding like a self-hating Arab academic: No, I will not boycott Israeli academic institutions. I admit I have the luxury of academic work outside the territories. Still, I have two main reasons not to boycott:
1) For boycott to mean anything, it has to be all inclusive, not just aimed at the relatively liberal section of society. Otherwise, we are just punishing the 5% who DID sign the petition without reaping any results in return.
2) As a historian, I have but the deepest respect for the work Israeli scholars are doing on Ottoman Palestine, work unparalleled in the Arab world. I saw some of the names of these scholars in the list of signatories. I am sorry to say that there are many names I did not see, and, given their politics, I don't understand why. But even though they did not sign the petition, they are giving Palestine its history. To boycott them would be to boycott myself.
Regards.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/
mort...cott_sanct.html
Even if some people think the academic boycott is unfair, it is really a case of putting pressure on Israel in whatever way we can. Sometimes one has to sacrifice small principles for far greater principles.
What gets to me about the Engage lobby, is that they are far more 'distressed' by boycotts than Israel's behaviour, which they are doing nothing about, despite claiming to care about the Palestinians.
Try again, Oaf and Co.
As a Jew I am use to speaking for Palestinians. It has long been the case that the only people listened to on the Palestinian issue are Jews. It has become our responsibility to speak out for the Palestinian people because the leaders of the world and the news media refuse to listen to Palestinians. This is not a good thing. It is a horrible thing and the sooner it ends the better.
When reading the above quote I could only think - it is as if they are all dead. We give history to the Tasmanian peoples, for example.
The Palestinian people are not dead. They are quite capable of speaking in their own voices, and of discovering and putting forward their own history. What is it that they want? I am not interested in what you or I want the Palestinians to have.
Palestinian voices are unheard, and that their historical narratives are unheard, and they are prevented from getting the education to discover the history of Palestine for themselves. Even if they manage to get the education, their movements are carefully controlled and they still would have problems performing the work to seek their own history.
Such situations are examples extreme racism. Under such circumstances, our moral direction should be to listen to the Palestinian people. What do they want? To deny them the right to discover their own history - and present it the way we would present the history of a dead peoples is not a good thing. We perpetuate the extreme racism that they are forced to live under. We must give voice to those who have been silenced. We must give education to those who are by policy left ignorant. We must allow a living history to those who's very existence is denied.
When my relatives are unable to get to university because some IDF youngster is feeling particularly unsociable at a checkpoint, what am I supposed to feel when the majority of Israeli academics at Israeli institutions stay quiet?
Education is a basic human right that transcends race, religion and gender- and is slowly being destroyed by the zionists in the occupied territories. Schools are being shut down by Israel because of tenuous links to "extremists". Did Israeli academia defend the Palestinians schools, or did they turn their heads away?
Israeli academia has a responsibility that goes beyond teaching their 'own'. They have a responsibility to help those people that their government has systematically applied rascist policies against for 50 years. If they fail to take this responsibility, then we are left with no choice but to boycott these institutions that do nothing to defend those who are struggling to get educated because of rascist zionist policy.
Ms. Tee, enjoy your plush teaching position outside of the occupied territories. Make sure you switch the TV off when you see a news report about Palestine. Wouldn't want you to feel guilty or anything.
Ms. Tee, don't let your love of the past- ottoman history, override the present reality; a reality that includes Palestinians struggling to be educated in the occupied territories.
There can be and there is freedom of movement in the "territories" but it is for Jews only on Jews only roads that connect Jews only settlements to each other and to Israel's pre-67 set-up. It might be policies like that that are endangering Jewish lives but you keep your head in the sand Scum. After all, it's not your sand.
When is your trial after being arrested at 'SaluteToIsrael'?
We want to come and 'support' you in thr Public Gallery...
Try to refine your points, I feel a ban coming on. One of us is out of their intellectual depth here.
Free speech is great isn't it Oaf ... provided the speaker agrees with your antisemitic vitriol
That was a good one. You're probably right. Most of the 9,000 academics in Israel haven't received this email, or any other email about what life is five miles from their home.
Too bad the guys at Nuremberg couldn't tell the judge, "your Honor, I was clueless. My spam filter blocked everything."
Would you be offended if they said "Thanks, but no tanks, or bulldozers for that matter!"
It's like killing someone and then expecting his family to love you and be grateful because you sent them a copy of the obituary.
And baby, there is something eerily, well, Teutonic, about your phrasing .
I wouldn't diagnose you as a "self-hating Arab." Guilt is not my specialty. I'd say rather you sound like a true believer in the ideological mystifications of the academic profession.
Please don't use "baby" here. There are plenty of ways to be offensive without being sexist.
Another possibility is that most of the 9000 academics know that five miles from their home there are not freedom fighters but people nearly totally united in their goal to finish Hitler's work. That, by the way, gives your Nuremberg comparison a very ironic edge.
Anti-Zionist Jews are Jews who refuse to take their own side in the war.
The settlements are for Jews only and so are the roads that connect them and the id cards make clear who is a Jew and who is not. Of course cars have to be stopped for the id cards to be seen but if the occupation is so bad for Jews, then Israel could have ended it a long time ago. Or is the occupation yet another breach of international law that Israel depends on for its very existence like ethnic cleansing, colonial settlement and the array of racist laws and policies aimed at countering the, ahem, "demographic threat"?
Christian h, have you been reading about Betar? I mention it because on their website (I ought to dig up the link) they actually boast that they were wearing brownshirt uniforms before the nazis. Aha, here's the link.
http://www.facebook.com/group.ph...?
gid=2221448894
Oaf - we got one hate site, yours is next
Besides, my lickerish, rolling eyebrows and prurient smile usually belie any sexist appearances I might project in person. Most people take me for a latent heterosexual, anyway.
sorry to hurt your feelings, but we're not on the same side. My side is the Palestinian liberation struggle.
So, you Arab academics accept the theory of the anti-Zionist self-hating Jew? Very interesting.
Seems a little improbable to me.
But you are so silly you accuse me of censorship then you threaten to pull my blog.
Your allegation that this is a hate site is also silly. The bloggers here hate injustice, particularly when it's inflicted on an ethno-religious basis. We want equality. Hate sites are racist or homophobic or something like that. You know, promoting discrimination or worse on the basis of someone's birthright.
Anyway, if I delete your comments from now on it's not even an eye for an eye given your threat (not the first similar threat by the way). It's more an eyelash for an eye. But instead of trying to suppress the truth or honestly held opinions you could make like Dershowitz and compete in the "free market of ideas" and start your own blog.
Also, it's not illogical to assume that someone who doesn't give a url with their comments doesn't have a blog. Most bloggers seem to give their url with their comments as a way of standing by what they say unless they're sock-puppetting. Shit! you got me. People with even a modicum of integrity give the name of their blog if they're commenting on another blog. What a fool I've been. Of course it was illogical of me to assume that you have even a modicum of integrity Well done Scum. You're too much for me.
One of the principal objections the Zionists have raised to the academic boycott is that Israeli academics have an important role to play in opposing Israeli atrocities from their elevated positions inside Israeli society. We have already seen, I think on this very blog, how Haifa University boasts publicly of its contribution to training Israeli military and 'security' forces to oppress the Palestinians. Now, this petition provides further evidence of Israeli academe's commitment to justice. One of the trolls has recently done a song and dance about how brilliant Israeli scientists and engineers are and how much they've contributed to the IT, communications, and medical technology the entire world purported benefits from. Surely, these geniuses understand that they have to check their junk mail folder from time to time.
Furthermore, to all appearances, the BDS movement in Britain has raised important issues in public fora, and significantly in the unions. I expect the same could be said of Canada and Ireland. So even if a boycott has no discernible direct impact on Israel, it may contribute to the development of a movement that will.
Another minor benefit of the PACBI call and the UCU resolutions is that it has smoked out some decidedly nasty characters, like Dershowitz and Julius, and impelled them to humiliate themselves in print (http://bureauofcounterpropaganda.blogspot.com/
2007/06/dershowitz-farts.html). Unfortunately, the dog's balls principle I enunciated a few days ago applies. Otherwise, if these hasbarists had any self respect, they'd never be able to bear the shame of appearing in public again.
If what you're suggesting is that the Indigenous Tasmanians are all dead, I think you should know that their own view is that reports of their demise are exaggerated and they take great exception to being called 'extinct'.
Can I find it by Googling "Scum Terminator"? Anyway, please do give us the URL- you can count on Mark to print it, I'm sure.
Terminator, Terminator, hmmm, if you don't mind me saying so, it doesn't sound like a Jewish name. Are you a Christian Zionist? I knew a family of movies by that name, but they weren't Jewish. Well, it really doesn't matter to me, I'll certainly read your blog no matter what religion you are.
'Deborah Fink
When is your trial after being arrested at 'SaluteToIsrael'?
We want to come and 'support' you in thr Public Gallery...'
is identical to the one posted by Jeremy on Harry's Place......Maybe he's not yet read my answer, which is that I was not arrested, but will be writing to Police Complaints about their over reaction to my singing and failure to arrest that hysterical woman who was trying to hit me.
But what all of this has to do with Mark's post, I don't know. Jeremy (sorry, Scumbag) obviously thinks he's being funny.
And how many signatories, I wonder, sign such petitions so they can go to their international conferences, look their colleagues in the eye and say, 'I've put myself out there. I've publicly opposed Israeli attacks on Palestinian education. How can you boycott me?'
I did not argue that the reason for the boycott is that Israeli academics are insufficiently liberal.
The opposition to the boycott has often made the groundless argument that Israeli academics are uniquely liberal and therefore an academic boycott will target the wrong people.
So the point is that this isn't so. An academic boycott will target exactly the right people.
As for why someone would sign a petition. I think that is secondary. There is nothing wrong with doing something so that one can look other people in the eye. This is called "socialization."
Assuming this is accurate (and I stand to be corrected), this low turnout might suggest that about 50+% of those academics you might expect to reply did not agree with the petition.
To turn it around the other way, I wonder why Israeli academics would not want freedom of movement for Palestinian academics. Are they considered a particular security threat? Just wondering...
About the intentions, I meant that I see these type of petitions, to an extent, as a response to the boycott campaign. As it grows, some academics in Israel will start agreeing with boycott, many others will be motivated to sign these sort of petitions. They're a kind of insurance policy (though in fairness are also signed in good faith).
My prediction is that we may be seeing many more such 'liberal' Israeli professors before long.
Replying to this comment of Scumbag's is not meant to demonstrate that I take him/her seriously. I never do take such people seriously. However I did wonder why he/she chose to question the numberplates issue. Certainly there used to be a difference between numberplates issued to occupants of the 'territories'. However I can assure your readers that when travelling in a car with Israeli numberplates but Palestinian occupants there is no doubt about recognition. It may be very sophisticated electronic techniques or it may be, as my Palestinian brother-in-law told me, that Arabs wear moustaches. I would be interested in some serious debate on this issue.
Instinct might trump electronics in these cases.
This is so sad. I always knew, and was instructed, that my Jewish heritage barred me from the easy bigotry of my white school-fellows- I could not even indulge the ubiquitous "Polish jokes" which were current fare.
If only I had spent that summer on the Kibbutz! I might have discovered a whole new slant on acceptable Jewish behavior and attitudes.
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