The Academic Boycott Of Israel

In early April 2002, moved by the massacres in Jenin and the wanton destruction of civilian infrastructurein West Bank cities by invading Israeli forces, two British academics, Hilary Rose and Steven Rose, circulateda call-posted at www.pjpo.org-for an academic boycott of Israel.

This campaign was directed mostly at European academics, and so when it reached me nearly two months later,in the first week of July, there were only six American academics among the signatories. I carefully read theboycott statement, which entailed non-cooperation with "official Israeli institutions, includinguniversities," and decided to sign on to the list. I also forwarded the call to academics on my mailinglist.

Most of the friends on my mailing list just ignored the call. Only two responded, and both were more than abit troubled that I should support such a thing. One described this campaign as "destructive,"another objected that this was an "attack" on academic freedom. And once my name was on the list ofsignatories, I promptly received two pieces of hate mail. One of the two, from India.

A few days later I came across a counter petition initiated by Leonid Ryzhik, a mathematics lecturer atUniversity of Chicago. In an interview published in The Guardian, May 27, he said that the boycott campaignwas "immoral, dangerous and misguided, and indirectly encourages the terrorist murderers in their deadlydeeds." And this week, in The Nation, August 5-12, Martha Nussbaum, an eminent ethical philosopher, wrotethat she felt "relaxed" to be in Israel, where she had gone to receive an honorary degree from theUniversity of Haifa, "determined to affirm the worth of scholarly cooperation in the face of the uglycampaign."

Having declared my support for the academic boycott of Israel, I believe I must now explain why I can notview this campaign as "destructive," "ugly" or supportive of "terroristmurderers." On the contrary, I see this as a moral gesture, part of a growing campaign by internationalcivil society to use its moral force to nudge Israelis, to awaken them to the ugly and destructive reality oftheir Occupation, which has now lasted for more than thirty-five years and shows no sign of ending any timesoon. At last, the cumulative weight of Palestinian suffering has begun to break through the crust of Israeliprotestations of innocence. Although tardy, world conscience is now preparing to engage Israeli intransigence.

Increasingly, the world outside United States understands that Israel is not a 'normal' country. TheZionist movement sought to establish an exclusively Jewish state in Palestine, a land inhabited almostentirely by Palestinian Arabs in 1900. Since no people yet has been known to commit collective suicide, thiscould only be accomplished by conquest and ethnic cleansing. This is how Israel emerged in 1948, throughconquest and ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Palestinians.

Yet this was not enough. Although Israel now sat on 78 percent of historic Palestine, this fell short ofZionist goals. In 1967 this shortfall was corrected when Israel, after defeating Egypt, Syria and Jordan,occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Another, smaller campaign of ethnic cleansing was rolled into this secondround of conquests.

Although the Security Council promptly passed a resolution, calling for Israeli withdrawal from theterritories it had occupied in 1967, this never had any teeth. Impressed by Israeli rout of Arab nationalistforces, United States deepened its partnership with Israel and promptly rewarded Israel by doubling itsmilitary and economic assistance.

As a result, thirty-five years later, Israel still remains in 'Occupation' of West Bank and Gaza. Inreality, this Occupation is merely a fiction, a farcical cover under which Israel buys time, time which ituses to insert armed Israeli settlers, to increase Israeli control and ownership of Palestinian lands, to pushthe Palestinians into ever shrinking enclaves, to escalate the violence against Palestinian resistance, and todeepen the misery of Palestinian lives till they can be forced to flee their homes.

The logic of the Occupation is brutal, and it should be transparent to all but the purblind. If Palestiniandemography prevents annexation, and if Palestinians cannot be expelled in one fell swoop-as they had been in1948-then the same results can still be achieved by forcing the Palestinians into Bantustans. If a millionPalestinians can live in Gaza, a strip of 100 square miles, the two million in West Bank can be pushed intosimilar enclaves, freeing 90 percent of the West Bank for Jewish settlers. It is about time that we gave upthe fiction of the Occupation, and describe this oppressive regime by its proper name. This is Aparthied: onecountry with two systems of laws, one for the colonizers and one for the colonized.

I have two objectives in rehearsing, though ever so briefly, this narrative of Palestinian dispossession.First, it is a narrative that has been denied repeatedly and falsified massively by Zionists. It thereforeneeds to be affirmed, simply and forcefully, again and again, in the expectation that world conscience willbear witness to the Zionist project of wiping out the Arab presence from Palestine to make room for Jewishsettlers.

Once this narrative is affirmed; once it becomes clear that the destruction of Palestinians wasnecessary-and always known to be necessary and accepted as necessary-for Israel to emerge as an exclusiveJewish state; once it is admitted that the dispossession of Palestinians has involved wars, ethnic cleansing,massacres, villages destroyed, cities besieged, homes demolished, children maimed and killed, prisonerstortured, ambulances bombed, journalists targeted, municipal records destroyed, and trees uprooted; once allthis destructiveness-already accomplished, and more of it unfolding everyday-is recognized the protestationsabout the "destructiveness" or "ugliness" of an academic boycott of Israel becomeinsupportable, indeed unconscionable.

Mr. Leonid Ryzhik, of the University of Chicago, argues that academic boycott "indirectly encouragesthe [Palestinian] terrorist murderers in their deadly deeds." Does he mean to say that this boycott"indirectly encourages" the Palestinian resistance; and anything that questions, delays or weakensthe extension of the Zionist project to the West Bank and Gaza must be challenged, and neutralized. It must beaffirmed in the face of such posturing that resistance is a right of the Palestinians, as it was of allcolonized peoples who faced dispossession. Of necessity, dispossession is implemented by force-unless thisproject is aided by pathogens; and, it follows, that resistance to the colonizer must be violent.

The question is not, why do the Palestinians resist, or why do they resist by violent means? There is adifferent question before world conscience. Why have we for fifty years abandoned the Palestinians to fighttheir battles alone, beleaguered by a colonizer whom they cannot fight alone? Why have we allowed thePalestinians to be battered, exiled from their lands, herded into camps-in villages and towns that have beenturned into concentration camps-exposed to the mercy of a colonizer who freely draws upon the finances,political support and military arsenal of the world's greatest power? In despair, marginalized, pauperized,facing extinction as a people, if the Palestinians now use the only defense they have-to weaponize theirdeath-who is to blame?

And if now world conscience shows the first signs of acting on behalf of the Palestinians, we can hope thatthis will mitigate the Palestinian's deep despair. When the young Palestinians learn that academics the worldover, that young people on campuses in Britain, France, Canada, and United States are stirring on theirbehalf, this will convince them that they are not alone; and once they are so convinced, they may be persuadedto renounce their acts of desperation. The academic boycott of Israel uses non-violent means, it leveragesmoral suasion, to reduce the violence of the colonizer as well as the colonized.

There are people who are shouting "Foul" at the academic boycott on the plea that this curtailsthe academic freedom of Israelis. I will readily admit that it does; this boycott is expected to work byshrinking some of the international avenues available to Israeli scientists for pursuing their work. Still itmust be emphasized that this curtailment is temporary; it will end the moment Israel ends its Occupation. Itis also limited in its scope. It only seeks to limit some of the advantages Israeli scientists derive fromtheir interactions with the global scientific community. It does not threaten any fundamental academicfreedoms.

This infringement of academic freedom-temporary and limited as it is-must be seen in a broader framework. Iwill readily concede that academic freedom is an important value, a value that all humane societies shouldcherish. But there are other values that we cherish, other values that may even be more important, morefundamental than the right to academic freedom. I believe it is reasonable and moral to impose temporary andpartial limits on the academic freedom of a few Israelis if this can help to restore the fundamental rights ofmillions of Palestinians-their right to life, to their property, to their lands, to freedom of movement withintheir own country, to sovereign control over their destiny, and to equal treatment under the law. This canonly be denied if we confess to a disproportion in the value we accord to Israeli and Palestinian rights.

One might, of course, argue that this boycott is wasted effort, since it can have no appreciable impact onIsraeli society and policies. This is a question about the efficacy of the boycott. There can be littlequestion that Israeli scientists value the esteem and cooperation of the world's scientific community as wellas access to international funding. It can therefore be expected that if the boycott spreads, this can beginto reduce the effectiveness of Israeli scientists. Perhaps more important, it is unlikely that Israeli politycan ignore the message that the boycott sends to them: that Israeli violations of Palestinian rights arerepugnant, and will not be allowed to stand.

At the same time, I refuse to be cowed by invocations about the 'sanctity' of academia. More than everbefore, universities help to reproduce the power structures of their societies; they are a potent source ofideologies of imperialism, race and class exploitation. Israeli universities are no exception. Through theirlinks with the military, the political parties, the media and the economy, they have helped to construct,sustain, and justify the Apartheid. I might have hesitated in adding my name to the boycott if I knew thatIsraeli academics had taken the lead in organizing rallies, in organizing sit-ins, and passing resolutionsprotesting the Occupation, or that they had refused to work on projects that serve the Occupation. To thecontrary, Israeli academia, on the whole, has shown that it is a party to the Occupation.

The academic boycott offers one of the few handles available to international civil society for seeking toend the Occupation. Israel has pursued policies in the Occupied Territories that would have invited economicsanctions, and even military intervention, against another country. America's capitulation to the Israelilobby has meant that Israel can wage war against a civilian population-using bombs, rockets, tank shells, andartillery fire-with impunity. Abandoned, isolated, beleaguered and unarmed, a few Palestinian men and womenhave responded to this massive force by weaponizing their own death, provoking still greater violence againstthemselves. But, paradoxically, this has also pushed world conscience into taking notice of the affront tohumanity that is the Israeli Occupation. The academic boycott is one small step the detribalized world is nowtaking the stop this affront, a step that all men and women who have risen above tribalism should welcome.

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University, Boston. His second book, Poverty from the Wealth ofNations was published by Palgrave (2000). 

Copyright: M. Shahid Alam.