A pogrom on campus

Editorial

Just as the British University and College Union rejected the idea of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and individuals, along comes a group of Canadian professors, including British Columbians, to champion this despicable idea.

Since the possibility of an academic pogrom emerged earlier this year, Canadian university presidents, Nobel laureates and other people who value academic freedom and scientific progress have railed against the idea of banning professors and ideas based on nationality.

On Sept. 28, the University and College Union in the United Kingdom ended discussion of the possibility of a boycott against Israelis. It would be nice to think they had come to their senses, but the decision was more pragmatic than commonsensical. The union was struck with the fear of being hauled up on human rights charges after receiving legal advice that such a boycott would likely contravene British law.

In an article in the September issue of Faculty Focus, the newsletter of the University of British Columbia's faculty association, eight professors, including at least one member of the Jewish community, signed an article calling for further discussion of the idea of a boycott. These academics take a devious approach. The authors shield themselves from direct criticism that they support an anti-intellectual boycott by insisting they are merely calling for continued discussion. It is a specious and cowardly approach. They do not have the courage of their convictions to actually call for a boycott. They call instead for reopening a discussion that the university's president, Prof. Stephen Toope, in a courageous and principled manner, declared closed. The writers cloak themselves in the upright mantle of free discourse to promote the notion of banning ideas and people based on nationality. The signatories make the perverse claim that boycotts do not target individuals.

"It should be remembered, first of all, that boycotts are not about individuals," write the faculty members, arguing that such actions are aimed at changing institutional policies, in this case, the occupation of Palestinian lands. This is a ridiculous claim, not only because such a boycott would have specific effects on the careers of individuals, but because of the individual impacts on people who do not even know they are collaborators in Israeli transgressions – cancer patients, Alzheimer's victims, cellphone users: anyone who benefits from the work of Israeli researchers and academics. These are the people who would be hurt most. The boycott would harm academic research, scientific advancement and the free flow of ideas that is oxygen to learning. But it would most necessarily hurt anyone who benefits from the science and other research taking place in Israel, which is home to several of the great centres of learning in the world.

This academic boycott, therefore, is no academic matter. Israel has the highest per capita rate of academic publishing in the world. A boycott would have the very tangible consequences of harming not only civil society and intellectual advancement, but human health and access to potable water technology, which are some of Israeli academia's top exports.

A couple of examples of what the world would sacrifice by cutting Israel out of the community of learning include a no-radiation diagnostic process for breast cancer, computerized administration of medications that removes human error, which accounts for 7,000 patient deaths each year in the United States alone, and a pill-like video camera that permits doctors to view the small intestine from inside. These are three of the millions of things these academics would cast aside in order to support Palestinian nationalism – a repressive movement that has demonstrated a commitment to free academic and scientific inquiry that is about on par with those of the boycott proponents.

The contemporary book burning that is an academic boycott is also alarming because it is a continuation of a long history of anti-Semitism in the academy. Activism of all varieties is usually at its most pitched on university campuses, but this is not the only reason this issue has been most pronounced on campus. Universities have often been a place where anti-Jewish discrimination emerges, in part because anti-Semites have a knack for finding the most hurtful and malicious tactics. Academic boycotts follow in a long history of anti-Jewish discrimination that routinely takes the forms of book-burning, idea-banning and numerus clausus – the limiting of the number of Jews allowed to enrol in a university, which was a common form of discrimination even in Canada until recent decades. This is not a coincidence. Anti-Semites know that the best way to get the Jews' goat is to kick them where it hurts: right in the books.

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