British lash out once more

EDGAR ASHER ISRANET

It is almost impossible to apply logic to the latest example of British perfidy as demonstrated in the call for an academic boycott of Israeli universities by the University and College Union (UCU) at their first annual conference last week.

The proposal for a boycott was proposed by Brighton University philosophy lecturer, Tom Hickey. Delegates voted 158 to 99 to sever links with academic institutions in Israel. The reason given for the boycott is that the newly formed UCU sees Israeli academics as "being complicit in alleged human rights abuses of Palestinians." Despite the fact that the UCU has a 120,000-strong membership, the call for the boycott was put into effect with the show of hands of less than one-quarter of one per cent of the total membership. The proposal will now be put to the full membership over the next several months.

This latest manifestation of anti-Israel behavior and rhetoric was well publicized here in Israel. Commentators in the Israeli media more or less shared the viewpoint that the UCU proposal was just another example of anti-Semitism, warped thinking and pandering to the ever-growing leftist tendencies that permeate British academic institutions.

In Britain itself, the UCU proposal received a very unsympathetic press from many quarters, including a rocky reception from two newspapers not known, to put it mildly, for their support of Israel. The U.K. Independent called the UCU proposal "A self-indulgent distraction from the real issue." The paper went on to point out that, "Some Israeli academics have worked hard to oppose the excesses of their government in the West Bank and Gaza. What good does it do to punish them in this manner?"

Meanwhile, the Guardian quoted several delegates who also expressed their concern at the UCU proposal. One was quoted as saying there were "many, many academics ... who oppose [the] Israeli government policy tooth and nail."

The UCU proposal has been featured in most of the Israel media. Disdain can perhaps best describe the reaction at all levels. However, it was clear that derision was not enough – it had to be refuted, because further proposals of a similar kind to the UCU are to be tabled soon by British architects. There was also anger from individuals and organizations in Israel that such proposals 'twisted the truth'. Why, asked one commentator, does the world ignore the continuing genocide in Darfur, the cutting off of hands in Saudia Arabia and executions in the Palestinian Authority?

It is not all in one direction. Prof. Steven Weinberg, the American Nobel Prize-winning physicist, cancelled a long-standing arrangement to visit the United Kingdom, citing the action of the UCU as his reason. In Israel, Maman, the company that handles all imports at Ben Gurion Airport, said that it is considering a complete ban on handling of all imports from the U.K. Total annual imports from the U.K. to Israel amount to $2.4 billion, of which a substantial amount comes by air.

The former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore, in a comment published in the paper on June 2, wrote, "The main universities of Israel are, in fact, everything that we in the West would recognize as proper universities. They have intellectual freedom. They do not require an ethnic or religious qualification for entry. They are not controlled by government. They have world-class standards of research, often producing discoveries which benefit all humanity. In all this, they are virtually unique in the Middle East."

Moore went on to ask, "How can we have got ourselves into a situation in which we half-excuse turbaned torturers for kidnapping our fellow citizens while trying to exclude Jewish biochemists from lecturing to our students?"

He also discussed at length what would have happened if "some fanatical Jews had grabbed [BBC reporter] Mr. [Alan] Johnston and forced him to spout their message, abusing his own country as he did so. What would the world have said? There would have been none of the caution which has characterized the response of the BBC and the government since Mr. Johnston was abducted on March 12. The Israeli government would immediately have been condemned for its readiness to harbor terrorists or its failure to track them down."

Israelis regard these kinds of boycotts as pathetic. It shows a moral dilemma facing the perpetrators. Those who voted for the boycott walk the hallowed halls of education wearing blinkers. Most have no real idea of what goes on in Israel and support the perverted thinking of leftist extremists who cannot stand up and say, for example, that the firing of more than 1,000 missiles into southern Israel from Gaza over the past year is just plain wrong and cannot under any circumstance be tolerated or justified.

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