When we launched Z Word at the end of January 2008, the first crop of essays included a brilliant dissection of the boycott by Eve Garrard, entitled “Excluding Israelis.”
Eve ended her piece like this: “It would be nice to be able to say that what I’ve provided here is the anatomy of a failure, but it’s by no means certain that we’ve heard the last of the boycott project. Watch this space.” And I remember, during our back and forth over the editing of her essay, asking Eve whether she was not being a little overcautious with this last sentence. Surely, I said, referring back to the UCU’s own legal advice that a boycott would violate anti-discrimination laws, this is over. Surely, I continued, what you are writing about is history, not a current threat.
Eve demurred. Don’t rule anything out, she told me. Unfortunately, she turned out to be right. Today, 28 May 2008, the UCU did it all over again. At their annual conference in Manchester, they voted to encourage an academic boycott of Israelis.
Except that Sally Hunt, the UCU’s General Secretary, is busily claiming that what was passed is not, in fact, a boycott of Israelis, but a call for solidarity with the Palestinians. Now, it may be that Hunt is worried about the fact that the union’s policy, as of this afternoon, urges members to break the law, and that her words are a clumsy approximation of spin. Or - remembering Eve Garrard’s dictum not to rule anything out, and we are talking about the UCU after all - it may be that we have passed through the looking glass. The boycott is not a boycott. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
This is a motion which puts the entire blame for the conflict on Israel. A motion that notes the “complicity” of “most” of the “Israeli academy.” A motion which calls on UCU members to “consider the moral and political implications” of working with Israeli colleagues. Which encourages members to raise the issue of the “occupation” with Israelis they happen to be collaborating with (”Amos and Tikvah, can we just put that discussion about those antiretroviral drugs to one side, as we’d like to ask you about your complicity with the occupation”). A motion which deems that criticism of Israel is not “as such, antisemitic” (very inconsiderate towards Hezbollah and Hamas, who have gone out of their way to demonstrate that the manner in which they criticize Israel emphatically is antisemitic). Finally, a motion which urges a wider discussion about breaking links with Israeli institutions on the basis of discussions with British and Palestinian - but not Israeli - trade unionists.
And yet, Sally Hunt tells us that what we have here is not a boycott.
Many people in Britain will tell you that the UCU is a sorry excuse for a union, unable to do anything to improve the working conditions of its members and cowed by the antics of the Socialist Worker’s Party. Some conclude that, therefore, the UCU isn’t worth bothering about.
That view is understandable, but mistaken. The boycotters aim is to turn Israel into a 21st Century version of apartheid South Africa. The sordid motion they passed today will no doubt be presented by them as the first step in doing so.
As we gear up to fight the UCU boycott - and the broader campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) - here are some useful links:
- As well as Eve Garrard’s original Z Word essay, there is her incisive portrait of the boycotter as a stalker;
- The legal advice obtained by Stop the Boycott, which demonstrates conclusively why the boycott is illegal;
- A critically important piece by Shalom Lappin; it might have been written last year, but it has lost none of its relevance;
- David Hirsh’s recent piece for Democratiya examining arguments against the boycott;
- My own monograph on the ideological foundations of the boycott campaign;
And don’t forget to regularly check the blog of our friends at Engage.
If your being boycotted by universities its because your doing something wrong. You need to check yourself and stop harassing others who refuse to kiss your butt and do what you say. The world does not belong to you, and although you are influential you are not GODS. If you want respect, then you have to treat people with respect. That is the basis of the GOLDEN RULE, which many have chosen to ignore. Israel has skrewed up its reputation by huberis, arrogance, and a general disregard for the lives of Arabs and Palistinains. The world has seen it and its too late to take it back. When Israel learns to respect people maybe the reputation can be restored, but that trust aint comming back soon since much of those protesting now have been fighting for decades just to speak freely.
Boycotts by western universities, which have been hijacked by leftist, socialist, communist demagogues and $120 per barrel oil money, need to be fought against just like any other anti-democratic onslaught. When are these hijacked universities going to demand boycotts of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China, for their suppression of Human Rights of women, gays, ethnic minorities? The Middle East has never been all Arab, all Muslim. The Arab/Muslim world needs a Reformation to join the modern world.
Edward could learn to spell before submitting his reaction. I presume that he is happy to kiss Chinese, African, Indian, Russian, Turkish, etc butts, despite their behaviour towards lesser breeds and fellow-citizens. Butt-kisser par excellence, this still shows him to be a bigot.
In one sentence Edward sums up exactly what is rotten about the boycott. When he says “although you are influential you are not GODS” it is clear that he is not talking about Israel and Israelis. And so the hatred that dare not speak its name (but that dares to do just about everything else) is exposed once again. No doubt Edward and his friends will charge that they are being falsely smeared as anti-Semites in order to silence them, but charges of wielding great influence are not leveled at Israel or Israelis, but rather at Jews.
Why is it that everyone who supports anti-Semitic motions also claims that they are being silences by the Jews (or as Edward would have it “Gods”). This is as true of Ahmadinejad (we in the West are controlled by the Jews and therefore cannot discuss the Holocaust) as it is of Mearsheimer and Walt who state that “the Israel Lobby” tries “to blacklist and intimidate scholars” who are critical of Israel.
And, of course the UCU motion begins with “we will not be intimidated”.
And now Edward (writing and having his coments published on Z-Word) writes that “much of those protesting now have been fighting for decades just to speak freely”.
It all reminds me of an old Jewish joke. Two Jewish men sit on a bench in Nazi Germany. One of the men is reading a Jewish newspaper and getting depressed; the other is reading a Nazi paper and has a huge smile on his face. Finally the man with the Jewish newspaper can’t stand it anymore and cries out “How can you read that stuff and smile?!”
And the other replies, “Easy. If I read your paper I will only read about how bad things are for the Jews. But if I read the Nazi paper, I learn that we are all rich and rule the world.”
Regards,
Inna