Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism
The Academic Boycott of Israel – why Britain?
By Ronnie Fraser
· In 2002 the Guardian newspaper published a letter calling for a European Union moratorium on funding for grants and research contracts for Israeli Universities. Since then all the major attempts to boycott Israeli Universities and academics have started in Britain.
· The 2005 AUT boycott attempt which has been a wake up call for Israeli academics, Israeli universities and the leadership of Anglo Jewry is discussed in detail.
· This essay examines the conditions in Britain which has allowed it to become the centre for the academic boycott of Israel.
On 22 April 2005 the Association of University Teachers [AUT] Council meeting in Eastbourne passed motions to boycott Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities, distribute pro- boycott literature to its 48,000 members and referred back a motion to boycott the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Just over a month later on 26 May 2005 at a special meeting of the council these motions were revoked and the AUT decided to have a full review of its international policy, to work alongside the TUC and the other academic trade union NATFHE as well as working with both Palestinian and Israeli academics.
Between these two meetings the AUT membership who suddenly realised that their union had been hijacked by the boycotters led by Sue Blackwell voted to overturn the ban at their local AUT branches. They did this because some felt strongly on the issue of academic freedom; some felt any criticism of Israel at this time of potential peace was wrong whilst others believed the AUT was now a racist union.
The effect on Israeli academics, Israeli universities and the leadership of Anglo Jewry has been a wake up call for them as they all suddenly realised this is an issue that will return sometime in the future
The origins of the Academic boycott
The first academic boycott of Israel campaign was launched in 2002, at the time of the Israeli offensive against Palestinian terrorist organisations in the West Bank when Steven and Hilary Rose and 123 other academics wrote a letter to the Guardian newspaper[1], calling for a European Union moratorium on funding for grants and research contracts for Israeli Universities.
Originally this was seen as a spontaneous reaction to what was happening in Israel and the Territories, but subsequent events have proved that it was part of a well thought out campaign linking the enemies of Israel, the political left, self -hating Jews and the Palestinians. It is almost as though they had been waiting for an opportunity to launch the boycott at a time when the world was condemning Israel.
The letter was published on Saturday 6 April 2002, which ensured that it would be printed elsewhere in the following days and their choice of the Guardian was also important, as this newspaper is well known for its socialist and anti-Israeli views and is widely read by academics on the political left. Within days academics from all over the world had signed the petition and within days similar petitions had been started in France and Australia. Although the letter called for an EU moratorium, it became known within a few weeks as the academic boycott of Israel.
The Guardian boycott letter caught everyone unprepared, the Israeli and Diaspora response was uncoordinated and even condemnations from official sources were slow, the EU taking two weeks to put out a press release opposing the boycott. A counter petition against the call for European boycott of academic and cultural ties with Israel was published on April 15th.
The boycott issue was kept in the headlines when two months later on 6 June Mona Baker, a lecturer at Manchester UMIST University in Manchester, a signatory to the Guardian letter dismissed two Israeli academics from the editorial board of an academic journal which is published by her company. UMIST, her employers decided to distance the University from her actions and announced that an inquiry will be held[2]. No quick decision was reached and six months later UMIST announced that she had not broken any rules as what she had done did not conflict with her teaching duties. Through out this period, the Roses, Mona Baker and their supporters cleverly used the press to keep the boycott issue alive, by writing letters and placing articles in the press. The response of the UK Jewish community for all of 2002 and the first few months of 2003 was poor and uncoordinated. The main responses came from individual academics in the UK and Israel and neither country took the boycott threat seriously until 2005.
Sue Blackwell’s first attempt to pass a boycott motion[3] was made at the 2003 AUT council meeting in Scarborough. The debate was held late on a Friday afternoon denying many Jewish members the opportunity to participate as they would not be able to get home in time for the Sabbath. Shalom Lappin, an Israeli academic working in London led the opposition to the motion which was defeated by a two to one majority
The Wilkie affair surfaced shortly afterwards in June 2003, when Professor Wilkie, an Oxford professor rejected an application from an Israeli student because he had served in the Israeli army and he had a "huge problem" with Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Two days later this author contacted the Sunday Telegraph[4] who published the story and as a result of the worldwide publicity Wilkie was suspended without pay for two months from his post at Oxford University and made to take equal opportunities training. Within four days Wilkie had been turned from accuser in to the accused an event unparalleled in Israel activism[5].
The AUT Academic Boycott of Israel 2005
The idea of boycott has been roundly condemned by bodies as diverse as the UK government[6], the International Council for Science[7], the scientific journal Nature[8] and The Independent newspaper[9]. They all recognised that academic work should not be blocked on political grounds, that to discriminate on grounds of nationality was pernicious and was likely to lead to discrimination here and that academic discourse was crucial in keeping channels open to build opportunities for peace.
The AUT motions were based on the public call in April 2004 by nearly 60 Palestinian academic trade unions and NGO’s under the umbrella of the Palestine Call for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.[10] PACBI claimed that “The Israeli academy has contributed, either directly or indirectly, to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying the military occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza.”
This call was waved aside by Ilan Chet, the President of the Weitzman Institute by saying that “the Israeli academy is not involved in the occupation and politics. We’ve worked with Palestinian academics.[11]” He believed, like many Israeli academics that the 2003 boycott call was not effective because many scientists throughout the world had expressed opposition to such boycotts.
The Conference at SOAS
This Palestinian boycott call provided the boycotters with what they needed; a basis for their attempt to impose sanctions the following year’s AUT council. The next move was announced at the international conference “Resisting Israeli apartheid strategies and principles” held in December 2004 at SOAS, part of London University. Although organised by the SOAS Palestinian society event, it was a well-funded international event that brought together all the well known supporters of the boycott; Stephen and Hilary Rose and Mona Baker from UK, Lisa Taraki from Bir Zeit University, John Docker from Australia, Lawrence Davidson from the USA and Ilan Pappe from Israel.
There were many protests made to the SOAS authorities that the conference would incite hatred and make life more difficult for Jewish students[12]. Their response was that they could not interfere as it was organised by a SOAS student society and not by the School itself.
The importance of the event was emphasised by Hilary Rose's comment:
"We are here today at SOAS to set in train nothing less than an international boycott movement of historic significance. The size and difficulties of the task we have set ourselves, and the bitterness of our enemies are immense.” She went to announce the formation of BRICUP, the British committee for the universities of Palestine, whose objective is to call for an academic boycott of Israel.[13]
Birmingham AUT's Boycott initiative
The final part of the plan was completed when Birmingham AUT submitted the four boycott motions for the 2005 AUT conference. Sue Blackwell who proposed them admitted that they were tactical motions and that “one of the reasons we didn't win last time was that there was no clear public call from Palestinians for the boycott”.[14]
After a short debate the 228 AUT council delegates decided to boycott Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities, distribute pro- boycott literature to its 48,000 members and to refer back a motion to boycott the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Almost immediately a campaign to reverse the AUT boycott decisions was started by AUT members Jon Pike and David Hirsch who set up a group called Engage to overturn the boycott motions. Rooted firmly in Left-wing politics, they reject any claims that Israel is an ‘illegitimate state’ and voiced their concern that the Left, by adopting such attitudes, has become anti-Semitic. Their website, which was updated daily, played a major part in their campaign. Jon Pike organised the letter signed by 25 council members of the AUT requesting the special council meeting which was held on May 26th.
The UK Jewish opposition was led by the Academic Friends of Israel [AFI], the Academic Study Group and the Union of Jewish Students who worked closely with Jon Pike and encouraged their members to support the Engage campaign. The Board of Deputies of British Jews which “expressed its concern at the wider implications of the AUT decision[15]” formed the Campaign Group for Academic Freedom [CGAF] to coordinate the Jewish response as well as campaign to overturn the AUT decision.
The implications of the AUT decisions
The AUT executive were criticised for their mishandling of the debate because closure was called before the opponents of the boycott were allowed to present their case[16]. They had been confident of winning as the 2003 motion had been defeated by a margin of 2 to 1 but they underestimated the determination of their opponents who knew that they only needed another 30 votes to win. Another mistake was deciding to refer back the boycott motions for further discussion, which is a favorite tactic of Trade Unions when the want to "bury" a subject and not discuss it again.
The AUT executive also ignored several requests from the AFI as well as from Bar Ilan University to move the debate from the Friday to earlier in the week in order that Jewish union members would be able to take part in the debate. By holding it on a Friday, Jewish members would not be able to get home in time for the Sabbath or the Jewish festival of Passover which started the following night[17].
The substance of the charges against the Israeli institutions concerned were largely false or misleading. The basis for boycotting the Hebrew University was that it had confiscated land from the El-Halou family, which was entirely false. Repeated court proceedings had found in favour of the Hebrew University, and the matter was eventually settled by negotiations between both parties. The claim against Haifa University was that it was victimising and threatening to dismiss Dr Ilan Pappe is also false. Haifa University has repeatedly made it clear that it has made no attempt to expel Dr Pappe, and that his situation is secure.
Bar Ilan University was accused of being “directly involved with the occupation of Palestinian territories” because it supervised 3% of the lecture courses at the College of Judea and Samaria in the West Bank, a college which has a student body made up of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Bar Ilan’s connection with Ariel College ceased when the final students on the courses supervised by them graduated in August 2005. The AFI presented the AUT with all this information two weeks before the debate but they failed to recognise the inaccuracy of the motions and act on it accordingly.
The AUT executive motion[18] calling for dialogue and contact with both sides in the conflict was also criticised because owing to sloppy drafting it called for contact with the Israeli Higher Education Union, an organisation that does not exist. Although the AFI had previously queried this with the AUT, it was a critical mistake by the executive as it was used against them in the debate by Sue Blackwell.
By supporting the motion to distribute “ pro-boycott literature “ as well as their own motion to open dialogue with both sides the AUT executive failed to see the dangers of this policy. They had expected the boycott motions to be rejected and were convinced that Israeli academics would want to talk to them even though the distribution of literature could be interpreted as supporting an academic boycott of Israel.
The AUT boycott was not about building unity to support the Palestinians, nor was it against Israeli policy; it was an attempt by a small group of activists to delegitimise and demonise Israel. Sue Blackwell regards the State of Israel as “illegitimate”[19] and has frequently said she is not anti-Semitic, but her actions in supporting motions that exclude from the threat of a boycott "conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state's colonial and racist policies” cannot be seen as anything other than anti-Semitic and racist.