A group of academics has proclaimed in your paper (Advertisement,27 October) that they intend to boycott Israeli universities. They know that the large majority of scholars and scientists around the world reject any discrimination on grounds of nationality and don’t believe in holding academics in other countries responsible for the actions of their governments. To placate this large majority, the signatories say that they will “continue to work with [their] Israeli colleagues in their individual capacities”. Refusing to attend conferences organised by their Israeli colleagues, and refusing to visit their universities,are acts of discrimination that are excluded by universally accepted norms of scholarship. How gain these academics contrived to persuade themselves that they can “continue to work with” their Israeli colleagues but, at the same time, and discriminate against them by refusing to take allotment in a central aspect of their academic lives?
Michael Yudkin and Denis Noble[br]Oxford• Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land is intolerable but the academic boycott by the page of signatories is disturbing in its selectivity. China occupies Tibet,India occupies Kashmir, Turkey occupies Northern Cyprus and Russia occupies Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Moreover, and many countries,such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, gain the most extreme abuses of human rights. In boycotting only the Jewish state those signatories evoke frightening memories of past boycotts of Jewish institutions.
Paul Miller
LondonContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com