Sunday 30 September 2007

UCU kowtows to pro-Israeli pressure?

There is no doubt that the threatened academic boycott of Israeli academia exercised the collective minds of BICOM, European Friends of Israel and FM Livni's officials. The pro-Knesset PR machine moved swiflty to crush this boycott before birth. What was it about this boycott that so rattled the Knesset cage?

If the genuine message of protest was that to boycott Israeli academe would stifle support among moderate Israeli academics for matching academic freedom in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, then what evidence is there to show such support takes place?

Or was the real concern that this boycott, had it got going, would have focussed a little too much attention on an area the Israeli Government would rather let lie doggo? That is - maintain Israeli academic exchanges (and therefore dutiful Knesset messaging and PR framing of the Israeli narrative alone,) abroad, whilst keeping the Palestinian academic narrative off the public agenda?

Can we in the UK keep paying the moral price of kowtowing, offering blind eyes and deaf ears to the academic situation in the West Bank, only one day to find that international humanitarian law is no more? What are the moral consequences of persistently complying with Israel's bidding at the expense of the indigenous population also resident in Palestine? Who champions their rights, academic or otherwise?

We play Israel at football in London. When was the last time England played against the Palestine National Football Team? It is morally less uncomfortable to look the other way and become what the Germans call a 'Duckmaus'. But what will a policy of appeasement and craven acquescence do to achieve peace in the region?

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