Arnold Leder

See my post of May 28, 2005 The Failure of the Israel Boycott: Analysis & Reflections

May 6, 2005 Update

See my post of Sunday, May 8, 2005 on the long delayed NYT coverage of the boycott story. See also my May 14, 2005 post for additional updates on the boycott and anti-Semitism at British universities.

The AUT to reconsider its boycott decision.

The AUT has announced a special meeting of the AUT council to be held on Thursday, May 26, 2005.

"The sole business of this special council meeting will be to have a full debate on proposals to boycott Israeli universities."

It is clear that the AUT is feeling the pressure from many of its own angry members as well as from concerned and angry individual academics, academic associations, and others from Israel, the U.S., and other countries.

In her May 5, 2005 report in The Guardian, Polly Curtis provides an inside look at the politics behind the second boycott debate.

It should be noted that in this otherwise informative description and analysis, the author refers to those who oppose the boycott as the “Israeli lobby”. In her words:

Meanwhile, the Israeli lobby make[s] frequent reference to the fact that the debate was held on the eve of the Jewish festival of Passover, when many who might have been there to lobby members prior to the vote were caught up in preparations.

This remark suggests an equation of “Israeli lobby” and Jews that is hardly, if at all, diminished by the use of the word “many”. Perhaps it is merely an unfortunate or poor choice of words but even then the suggestion of Israeli control of or influence on those who oppose the boycott remains and it implies an independent, more principled stand for boycott supporters. Should those who support the boycott then be referred to as the “anti-Israel lobby”? More accurately, given the realities of this entire affair, referring to those who support the boycott as the “anti-Semitic lobby” would be appropriate.

Updated and Revised May 5, 2005

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has issued a statement condemning the British academics' boycott of Israeli universities.

These resolutions have been met with strong condemnation and calls for repeal within the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The American Association of University Professors joins in condemning these resolutions and in calling for their repeal.

Norman Geras in his blog has an informative roundup of some of the latest developments in the boycott story.

See also Geras' comments in regard to the report of the AUT president at Keele University to local AUT members on the boycott decision.

In her April 28th piece, Melanie Phillips reports a broadening of opposition in Britain to the call of British academics for a boycott of Israeli universities.

Ephraim Karsh, in his article, “College Coarse”, posted in The New Republic on April 28th, discusses Israel's role in establishing universities in Palestinian areas.

That ... the association (AUT) chose to single out a vibrant democracy with a distinguished record on human rights and extraordinary scientific and scholarly achievements for academic boycott resonates of darker periods in European history in which Jews were ostracized and denied free access to institutions of higher learning. Only now it is the Jewish State of Israel, rather than individual Jews, that is singled out for ostracism. (boldface added)

See My Observations below for more on Karsh's article.

________________________________________

As an anti-Semitic yelp, Hep! is long out of fashion. In the eleventh century it was already a substitution and a metaphor: Jerusalem meant Jews, and “Jerusalem is destroyed” was, when knighthood was in flower, an incitement to pogrom. Today, the modern Hep! appears in the form of Zionism, Israel, Sharon. And the connection between vilification and the will to undermine and endanger Jewish lives is as vigorous as when the howl of Hep! was new. The French ambassador to Britain, his tongue unbuttoned in a London salon, hardly thinks to cry Hep!; instead, he speaks of “that shitty little country.” European and British scholars and academicians, their Latin gone dry, will never cry Hep!; instead they call for the boycott of Israeli scholars and academicians. (boldface added)

…a history that has been assaulted and undermined by world-wide falsehoods in the mouths of pundits and journalists, in Europe and all over the Muslim world, the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism has finally and utterly collapsed. (boldface added)

from: Cynthia Ozick, “The Modern hep! hep! hep!" Ozick's article is drawn from a longer essay in Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism, edited by Ron Rosenbaum (Random House 2004).

As Jews in Israel, Britain, and around the world prepared for the celebration of Passover, Britain’s Association of University Teachers (AUT), whose website claims a membership of over 47,800, voted on Friday, April 22, 2005, amidst much applause and cheers, to adopt as official union policy a boycott of two Israeli universities, The University of Haifa and Bar Ilan University. A proposed boycott of The Hebrew University was referred to executive committee for an investigation and a report. The union’s executive committee cut short debate and opponents of the boycott proposals were given no opportunity to be heard. The University of Haifa is charged with restricting academic freedom (*see note below) and Bar Ilan University is guilty of having had some affiliation with a college in the West Bank community of Ariel. The Hebrew University is accused of building student dormitories on occupied Palestinian land. Remarks were made by delegates at the meeting about the need for academic freedom in Israel and the complicity of Israeli universities in the occupation of the Palestinians.

Delegates attending the AUT meeting agreed to distribute to all their local associations a plan for British academics to end their ties to Israeli institutions. The plan, drawn up by a group of various Palestinian academic and cultural organizations, exempts Israelis who publicly criticize Israeli government policies affecting the Palestinians.

The April 22nd Jerusalem Post description (The Jerusalem Post requires registration. There is no fee.) of one of the key figures in the boycott initiative indicates the prevailing mood at the conference:

Before the session, Sue Blackwell, a key figure in the anti-Israel boycott initiative, stood outside of the conference center in the coastal town of Eastbourne, draped in a Palestine flag. She was joined by kaffiya-clad activists of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who handed out leaflets branding Zionism as a "racist ideology," and accusing Israel of "ethnic cleansing". For more on the AUT conference see The Guardian (UK) of April 22, 2005 (Access to Guardian archives requires registration. There is no fee.), the April 24th column of British journalist Melanie Phillips, and David Aaronovitch's column in the April 24th edition of The Guardian.

Earlier, on April 14th, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post, Britain's National Postgraduate Committee (NPC), representing all British master's degree and doctoral students voted unanimously to oppose the proposed academic boycott of Israel. An April 27th report in the The Jerusalem Post describes a possible backlash among some British academics who are angered by the boycott decision.

The April 17th online edition of The Times Of London reported that Jewish university students in Britain feared the efforts to boycott Israeli universities could lead to increased tensions on British university campuses and hostility to Jewish students.

The AUT decision and earlier discussions leading to it prompted swift replies and condemnation from the Israeli government and media, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and various commentators.

The Times of London in an April 25th editorial strongly criticized the boycott decision and called it a "mockery of academic freedom". The Times editorial also noted that the boycott decision is dangerous in that "it can quickly become an excuse for anti-Semitism." The Times also pointed out that "many Jewish students at British universities are already suffering growing hostility, including intolerable abuse from extremists."

My Observations:

Israeli policies are, of course, legitimate targets of criticism for those who disapprove of these policies. But the boycott goes far beyond such criticism. As a number of observers have noted, to single out Israeli universities for boycott while ignoring the repressive, authoritarian, often brutal regimes in the Middle East – Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran, among others, come to mind, not to mention Chinese repression of Tibet, the Mugabe dictatorship in Zimbabwe or the genocidal practices of the regime in Sudan – is nothing short of anti-Semitism. The AUT boycott has not occurred in a vacuum. Hostility to both Jews and Israel has been increasingly evident in Britain. Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident and until recently a minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs in the government of Israel as well as author of the much discussed book The Case For Democracy (Public Affairs, 2004) provides a guide to the new anti-Semitism thinly disguised as anti-Zionism. After the boycott decision, Sharansky sent a letter to Britain's Secretary of State for Education calling for the government to dissociate itself from the AUT's decision. In his letter, Sharansky stated that he was "appalled" by the boycott and he referred to the boycott decision as "a mark of Cain - a mark of shame - for Britain." [boldface added] (Note: On May 2, 2005, Sharansky, expressing his disagreement with the Sharon plan to withdraw from Gaza, resigned from his position in the Israeli government. In his letter of resignation, Sharansky detailed the reasons for his resignation.)

Often, just as earlier versions of anti-Semitism led some to call for or acquiesce in the elimination of the Jews, challenges to Israel's legitimacy and right to exist are challenged. These challenges can be easily dismissed on ethical, historical, and pragmatic grounds, (Azure may require registration. There is no fee.) among others. But the hostility which informs these challenges cannot and should not be ignored.

The AUT calls for exempting from the boycott Israelis who publicly criticize Israeli government policies affecting the Palestinians. Incredible! The hallmark of academic and intellectual life is free and open exchange of ideas and views. For these British academics, this does not apply to Israelis. Only those Israeli scholars who accept the AUT’s view of Israeli policies and the Israeli – Palestinian conflict are free to engage in dialogue with British scholars. In addition, one may ask what would be lost if the effort to boycott Israel and Israeli scholars is successful.

The British academics’ call for a boycott of Israeli universities is even more appalling in light of the fact that it was Israel that first established universities in Palestinian areas. As Ephraim Karsh, the head of the Mediterranean Studies Programme at King's College, University of London, notes in his article, “College Coarse”, posted in The New Republic on April 28, 2005:

In practice, aside from being the only country in the Middle East where academics enjoy complete and unrestricted freedom of expression, Israel has done far more to promote education in the Palestinian territories than has any other country. The West Bank and Gaza universities were established by Israel in the first place--neither the Jordanians nor the Egyptians, who conquered these territories during the 1948 war, had allowed universities prior to 1967.(boldface added) …Even more dramatic was the progress in higher education. At the onset of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank in June 1967, not a single university existed in these territories. By the early 1990s, there were seven such institutions, boasting some 16,500 students, as compared with 6 in Israel…

Mark Lilla, author of The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (New York Review of Books, 2001), writing in the June 18, 2003 issue of The New Republic, in a penetrating analysis of the hostility of European intellectuals to Israel and their equation of Zionism and racism, recognizes the roots of these views in anti-Semitism. He adds to this recognition his observation that in Europe today there is a crisis with respect to the idea of the nation-state, and the related concepts of sovereignty and the use of force. And these ideas have also affected European intellectual attitudes toward world Jewry, and specifically toward Israel. Here there is an extraordinary paradox that deserves to be savored. For centuries Jews were the stateless people and suffered at the hands of Europeans who were deeply rooted in their own nations.

Lilla goes on to note that Israel and the Zionist enterprise are perceived more generally as some kind of “political atavism that enlightened Europeans should spurn. Once upon a time, the Jews were mocked for not having a nation-state. Now they are criticized for having one”. (boldface added)

A persuasive case can be made that Israel’s unapologetic defense of its national existence embarrasses and angers many European intellectuals in post national Europe. But this is a perspective which ignores the experience of nation building in Europe and the early experiences of other states as well. In Lilla's words: The moral balance-sheet of Israel's founding, which is still being composed, must be compared to those of other nations at their conception, not to the behavior of other nations after their existence was secured. And it is no secret that Israel must still defend itself against nations and peoples who have not reconciled themselves to its existence--an old, but now forgotten, European practice.

The intense hostility to Israel and the evident anti-Semitism among British academics can, no doubt, in part be explained by Lilla’s provocative analysis. But a larger historical perspective suggests that too often there is one or another set of circumstances in Europe and elsewhere, that permits, excuses, or encourages the emergence and even enthusiastic embrace of anti-Semitism, however it is disguised.

The Israeli – Palestinian conflict is a complex, emotionally charged affair with many dimensions. However, the action taken by these British academics is much more than an expression of disapproval of Israeli policies. Mark Lilla suggests that Europeans, including the British, regard Israel's determination to defend itself and the Jewish desire to see Israel survive as a political atavism that enlightened Europeans should spurn. But it is a view held of no other state and people and certainly not with the intense hostility so much in evidence at this conference of British academics. Whatever else it may be, this hostility is clearly anti-Semitism. Melanie Phillips, the British columnist, states it well when she observes that anti-Semitism "has mutated from a desire to rid the world of the Jews into a desire to rid the world of the Jewish state." (boldface added) The world’s oldest hatred has again become fashionable for much of the British professoriate.

____________________________________

*The charge against The University of Haifa relates to an MA thesis, "The Departure of Arabs from Villages on the Southern Slopes of Mount Carmel", written by Teddy Katz under the supervision of Druze historian Kais Firro. But Ilan Pappe, the well known radical Israeli academic, became a highly visible supporter of Katz’s thesis, commanded much of the attention, and came to be identified with Katz's thesis. In his 1998 thesis Katz claimed that Arabs in the village of Tantura were massacred in 1948. The evidence for Katz’s thesis is largely taken from oral history and was vigorously challenged. After a legal battle and much controversy during which discrepancies between taped interviews and descriptions in his thesis came to light, Katz stated that he had not meant to suggest that a massacre of Palestinians by Israeli forces had taken place and he apologized. He later retracted this statement. Katz denied reports in the Israeli press that his legal fees were paid for by the Palestinian Authority. Ilan Pappe is a post Zionist Israeli historian who has been very critical of Zionism and Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. Pappe's book A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Cambridge, 2003) was subjected to a very negative review by Benny Morris, an Israeli historian who has recently distanced himself somewhat from his former post Zionist perspective, in the March 22, 2004 issue of The New Republic. Morris accused Pappe of committing serious errors, and of making his historical analysis serve his ideological agenda. He decribed Pappe's book as "appalling". Pappe responded with the accusation that Morris had told lies in his review.

For a detailed analysis of the Katz thesis, and its claim that a massacre had taken place in the village of Tantura in 1948, see Solomon Socrates, "Israel’s Academic Extremists", in The Middle East Quarterly, Fall, 2001. (Scroll to the section of the article labeled "Massacre" at Tantura.) [Note: Solomon Socrates is the pen name for a watchdog team of researchers keeping an eye on Israel’s universities.]

In his thesis ... Katz claimed to discover an intentional massacre of Arab civilians by the Israelis after their surrender, in which some 200-250 civilians lost their lives at the hands of Israeli firing squads. Firro and his department awarded Katz the unheard-of grade of 97 for this thesis, and its conclusions became widely known when they were broadcast in the national Israeli press. No one at all, not even Arab propagandists, had ever raised accusations of a massacre during the battle for Tantura, so this news caused a minor sensation.

But how could legions of anti-Israel researchers have overlooked a massacre in Tantura for two generations? Had such a massacre occurred, it could not have remained secret. Arab spin doctors, especially in the PLO, would long ago have raised any reports of a massacre and nailed it high on the same flagpole from which it has always waved the banners of supposed massacres at Deir Yassin and the Kfar Qasim. The events at Deir Yassin—in sharp contrast—were not only covered by the press at the time and used to great propaganda effect by Arab leaders, but have been a permanent feature of the Arab-Israeli debate ever since. Indeed, in late 1999, after the Israeli press had written about the Katz thesis, the PLO Ministry of Information and other agencies issued statements and posted news items about the new study on their web pages.

Why the fifty-year reticence about a massacre at Tantura?

Because there was absolutely no hard evidence at all produced by Katz ... or anyone else to show that a massacre had ever taken place at Tantura.(boldface added)

The official statement of The University of Haifa in response to the boycott decision provides details on the procedures followed in the Katz thesis issue and the conduct of Ilan Pappe, Katz's main advocate.

For Ilan Pappe's view of the boycott and his version of both the Katz thesis issue and his treatment at The University of Haifa, see Meron Rapoport, "Alone on the barricades", Haaretz, May 6, 2005. This piece includes portions of an interview with Pappe, some biographical background, and additional details on the Katz thesis issue.

Katz and his thesis, rejected by The University of Haifa, have become symbols of “truth” about Israeli "crimes" against the Palestinians for post Zionist Israeli academics and opponents of Israel elsewhere. For the views of faculty and administrators at The University of Haifa on the boycott vote and additional background on the Katz MA thesis and Pappe's position at the university, see the April 26th edition of The Jerusalem Post and also this report of the Jerusalem Post. See also Pappe's appeal to the AUT in support of the boycott.

Return to top.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Later posts on the boycott story:

May 14, 2005 - UK Academic Opposition To Boycott Amidst Anti-Semitism At British Universities

May 12, 2005 - Bar Ilan University’s New Website on Boycott

May 11, 2005 – University of Haifa Claims Defamation By AUT

May 5, 2005 – British Academics’ Israel Boycott: NYT Coverage – Too Little, Too Late