TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Mycroft said:
As long as they're pro-choice.
Art Vandelay said:
If history is any guide, a jew wishing for academic success in England must start by denouncing the Talmud as the work of Satan in front of the bishops and cardinals of the local university, and loudly proclaim it commands the jews to cheat and kill the gentiles.
Replace "Talmud" with "zionism" and you have a pretty good description (sans bishops) of the academic careers of Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shahak, Ilan Pappe, et al.
Everyone should be a to speak their mind regardless of their views (assuming they are not inciting violence or a crime.) For example, I despise Churchill and Pat Buchanan but they are both popular speakers. They should be allowed to speak at universities. I have no objection to protesting their presence as long as they are allowed to speak.
It is particularly ironic (and pathetic) that university professors who guard their acedemic freedom so vehemently want to deny free speech to other.
BTW, if I were required to denounce Bush in order to give a speech, I would refuse even if the purpose of the speech was to denouce Bush.
CBL
It’s my union, I’m sorry to say. That is, I’m sorry that anyone thinks a boycott of Israeli academics is a good idea, or in any way worth discussing, but the union can’t be blamed for including a legitimately submitted resolution on its conference agenda. People here may have the impression that the union leadership supports this campaign, or perhaps even initiated it, but that’s quite wrong.
Here is a fuller and more informative version of the article in Mycroft’s link (I don’t know why there are different versions). And some more useful information.
It is a highly organised campaign, started in 2002 by Professors Stephen and Hilary Rose, who are associated with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Jews for Justice for Palestinians (Stephen is Jewish). The campaign’s history is quite important, and especially the involvement of JREF’s own Richard Dawkins (it seems to be politically incorrect, or at least impolite, to mention this here). As is not unusual with these campaigns, it started out seeming quite moderate, but it wasn’t long before the organisers’ true intentions became apparent. The Guardian letter was followed by a petition/pledge for a boycott of Israelis.
Some of the original supporters, including Dawkins, got a little upset that the thing had gone beyond the mild knuckle-rapping of Israeli academics for being Israeli academics that they had intended. Dawkins retreated when the penny dropped that he was actually supporting a campaign against academic freedom. And, to give credit where it’s due, he did make a (rather limp) public statement dissociating himself from the campaign.
The campaign gained a lot of support (especially in the UK, but throughout Europe), but even more opposition. Some interesting (and, in fact, unanswerable) rebuttals here and here.
I do agree that the ‘compromise’ resolution, to boycott only ‘bad’ Israelis, is much worse than the original resolution to boycott all Israelis. Not sure what I should do if asked to vouch for any of our Israeli collaborators, or justify the collaboration. Strange and horrible thought, and it could happen.
I have a problem about Stephen Rose, because I have long admired him as a scientist and have learnt a lot from his popular writings. When he and his wife began their campaign I had just bought one of his books, Lifelines – Biology, Freedom, Determinism (1997) and was about to start it. Three years later it is still sitting on my bedside table at the bottom of the pile, because I can’t bring myself either to read it or to throw it away.
Edited for grammar
Here is a fuller and more informative version of the article in Mycroft’s link (I don’t know why there are different versions). And some more useful information.
It is a highly organised campaign, started in 2002 by Professors Stephen and Hilary Rose, who are associated with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Jews for Justice for Palestinians (Stephen is Jewish). The campaign’s history is quite important, and especially the involvement of JREF’s own Richard Dawkins (it seems to be politically incorrect, or at least impolite, to mention this here). As is not unusual with these campaigns, it started out seeming quite moderate, but it wasn’t long before the organisers’ true intentions became apparent. The Guardian letter was followed by a petition/pledge for a boycott of Israelis.
Some of the original supporters, including Dawkins, got a little upset that the thing had gone beyond the mild knuckle-rapping of Israeli academics for being Israeli academics that they had intended. Dawkins retreated when the penny dropped that he was actually supporting a campaign against academic freedom. And, to give credit where it’s due, he did make a (rather limp) public statement dissociating himself from the campaign.
The campaign gained a lot of support (especially in the UK, but throughout Europe), but even more opposition. Some interesting (and, in fact, unanswerable) rebuttals here and here.
I do agree that the ‘compromise’ resolution, to boycott only ‘bad’ Israelis, is much worse than the original resolution to boycott all Israelis. Not sure what I should do if asked to vouch for any of our Israeli collaborators, or justify the collaboration. Strange and horrible thought, and it could happen.
I have a problem about Stephen Rose, because I have long admired him as a scientist and have learnt a lot from his popular writings. When he and his wife began their campaign I had just bought one of his books, Lifelines – Biology, Freedom, Determinism (1997) and was about to start it. Three years later it is still sitting on my bedside table at the bottom of the pile, because I can’t bring myself either to read it or to throw it away.
Edited for grammar
Lucky,
Thanks for the information.
It is very sad news when there are political tests for authors of academic papers. I can understand (disagree with but understand) boycotting individuals for their stand but to boycott an entire country is absurd. To choose to boycott Israel and presumably not China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Palestine, etc is simply absurd (or anti-semitic.)
Dawkins' et al original letter is not quite so bad because it just calls for removing Israel from the European designation for human rights violations. This implies that only free countries can be part of Europe. If they make this a standard, it would be reasonable. However, to single out Israel without a general rule is questionable to say the least. Are Palestine, Russia or Ukraine considered European by these groups? Who judges which countries are free and which are oppressed?
CBL
Thanks for the information.
It is very sad news when there are political tests for authors of academic papers. I can understand (disagree with but understand) boycotting individuals for their stand but to boycott an entire country is absurd. To choose to boycott Israel and presumably not China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Palestine, etc is simply absurd (or anti-semitic.)
Dawkins' et al original letter is not quite so bad because it just calls for removing Israel from the European designation for human rights violations. This implies that only free countries can be part of Europe. If they make this a standard, it would be reasonable. However, to single out Israel without a general rule is questionable to say the least. Are Palestine, Russia or Ukraine considered European by these groups? Who judges which countries are free and which are oppressed?
CBL