Why Israeli academia will be boycotted
Education Minister Sa'ar's recent initiatives are a sign of the Israeli government's increasing self-seclusion inside a bunker of delusions, as it distances itself from considerations guided by historical, political and social wisdom. His recent statements befit benighted regimes that have lost connection to the world, like Iran and other totalitarian states.
By Moshe Shoked
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Education Minister Gideon Saar |
| Photo by: Emil Salman |
In the past two years I have been invited to take part in many conferences hosted by the American Anthropological Association. The topic of discussion at these forums has been the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I agreed to take on a thankless task not as a spokesman for Israel's education ministers or as a mouthpiece of the right or left. I appeared before an academic audience not noted for its sympathetic views on Israeli policy. This group is more inclined to support the Palestinians, albeit with the belief that neither side holds a monopoly on truth and justice.
I tried to place this awful conflict in the context of two truths, with two claims that contradict each other in terms of historical facts and painful memories, between two national movements that have lost all sense of proportion while striving for a settlement that does not provide either side with complete justice.
Alas, I have no plans to accept similar invitations in the future. In the past year, I have lost the conviction that I can truthfully speak for the current Israeli government's suicidal behavior. The recent statements by Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who vowed to deal with university lecturers and professors who condemn Israel and support a boycott of Israeli universities, reflect the deep abyss the current government has led us down.
I tend to believe that it is only a matter of time before this country's academic institutions are boycotted, regardless of the wishes of the education minister and other champions of Israeli patriotism. They will be boycotted not because of the handful of Israeli professors who have unabashedly supported such a step, but because Israel is under a global microscope that perhaps unfairly discriminates against it compared with other countries that act unjustly, even violently, toward their minorities and neighbors.
For better or worse, Israel does not enjoy the same luxury as countries like Russia and China, which do not rely on the support of Europe and the United States. Indeed, a look through this microscope reveals the foolishness of Israel's weak-kneed leadership.
The education minister's remarks are a sign of the Israeli government's increasing self-seclusion inside a bunker of delusions, as it distances itself from considerations guided by historical, political and social wisdom. His statements befit benighted regimes that have lost connection to the world, like Iran and other totalitarian states. Israeli academia is losing its international standing on its own account. The brightest students, the hopes of a young generation in academia, prefer to stay abroad.
As early as the 1980s, when I researched yordim - Israeli emigrants - in the United States, I concluded that the overwhelming majority of them will not return. The book in which I included my findings was not translated into Hebrew because at the time it contradicted the dominant ideology. Sa'ar and the rest of this bizarre government of ours would prefer to hunker down and cling to the belief that the entire world is against us and we are in the right.
We have become numb to these eye-popping facts: Operation Cast Lead did not bring back Gilad Shalit, nor did it topple the Hamas government. Instead, it sowed destruction in Gaza and undercut our global standing. Our pathetic cries against the Goldstone report did not help, either. The takeover of the pathetic flotilla once again lined up the world against us. Ultimately we opened the Gaza border crossings.
More than anything, Sa'ar's recent initiatives will help worsen the brain drain and the university boycott that awaits us. The despair that a vital sector of Israeli society, including academia, finds itself in needs to get the education minister to consider a renewed way of thinking that does not rely on a mob like that represented by right-wing Zionist movement Im Tirtzu. This brings to mind the moving call by late Labor MK Yizhak Ben-Aharon, who urged for "courage to make gains before calamity strikes." There is no need to silence "treacherous" professors, for the calamity has already struck.
The writer is a professor emeritus of anthropology at Tel Aviv University.
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The government won't be changing any policies just because there is an academic boycott. Nobody in politics actually cares that much about such things.
Operation Cast Lead did what is was supposed to do....Stop or greatly reduce the number of rockets fired into Israel. Of course, Shoked did not live in Sderot, so he does not care.
The mob does rule and if it is not the majority, then the majority does not care and rermains inactive. Democracy is disparaged as a foreign weakness. Tribal instinct has replaced humanism and a rampant paranoia has swept most institutions into a dark place where the world is judged to be, almost by nature, to be against Israel, as if that is the way things should be. The country has become bullying, thuggish, self righteous and sees itself has reserving the right to do as it wants in all things and expects the world to simply accept that. Other nations may behave worse but then they do not declare themselves to be western style, enlightened democracies.
Putting limits on academic expression based on political views may indeed open the road to McCarthyism. There are only few Israeli professors who campaign for boycotting Israeli academic institutions, and whether we like it or not, they might even be right. Israel nowadays is guided by the forces of nationalism and paranoia, and these may perhaps listen to no reason unaccompanied by a boycott or some other brutal pressure. So let this view be expressed even if it is not popular. Incidentally, arguments against academic holders of such views that they derive their salaries and standing from the state treasury, are really diversions. Let us say that the professors are inconsistent in drawing personal conclusions, but their views might still be right!
Why would any organization keep in it's ranks someone who actively and openly works against that organization? Israeli professors advocating boycott of their own universities should be fired.
A government whose policies you despise, a cabinet minister shooting off his hostile (to your mind) mouth, and you write off the State of Israel? Erudite as you are in anthropology, you must not have taken Political Science 101, which teaches us to distinguish between government and state.
.... by a Minister of Education (and a BA) that they will be "dealt with" if they do not conform politically....Not very nice, eh?
I am too Professor Emeritus of the Hebrew University. Maybe people who deal with anthropology are less understable to the Israeli case then biologists and biochemists but I attend many scientific meetings correspond with over 200 scientists and I absolutely NEVER faced any treat of boycott even from collegues who critize (like me) the present Israeli goverment. The Israeli scientists have a full right of criticims but calling for a boycott is something non-ethical. If they favor a boycott one could expect them to quit their flushy jobs first. I do not know why they are acting so but it may be a question to be answered by a phychologist. Anyhow my dear educated collegue .. Pls do not worry as this boycott will never be realized.
Let them go and follow the rest of these Israeli Leftist professors that go and live overseas,making careers and money by smearing Israel in the Anti-Israeli media.Good riddance,bloody ingrates.Don't come back.
in the 60s through to the present. If the educated leftists all leave, and only the hard-liners remain, I expect the whole region will go up in smoke within a decade. Good luck with your short-sighted wishes. I hope for your sake that they don't come true.
The people you call "educated leftists" are no different from religious settlers - both are ideological extremists pushing the country to disaster. Left-wing or Right-wing, people who blindingly follow some convoluted ideology and ignore facts which contradict their ideology are all the same - extremists endangering our lives.
it is not fair to put on the current israeli governement this calamitous situation cast lead is under olmert the fight against israel in european universities is very old afew years ago in paris universite pierre et parie curie decided a boycott hey change their mind because as many i send my doctorate and claim i was ashamed to be one of their graduate the fight must come inside western universities israel has no possibilities to do it and the lecturers in israel againt the existence of the state of israel must not be paid by taxes of the israelis they can express freely at their own expense
The author admits we are treated unfairly and are under a microscope. Its a double standard and there is no reason to play in a game that is already fixed. Moreover, Cast Lead was in fact a winner operation and Hamas has not been firing rockets as they know what awaits them if they dare. Deterrence works. Our Govt should get Gilad back using a simple method. Free him in an hour or else...cut off water or electricity or fill in. If we stop being politically correct and "enlightened" we'll get results. Would US, Russia or China be politically correct? No. Why should we? Double standards are inherently intellectually dishonest.
Everyone, including Israel, has double standards. Israel is no better and no worse than everyone else in this regard. And life can be unfair, yes.
But it's not reached it yet, and let's just hope that it's not too late once it does.
The academy, the left, civil organizations, all complain about the current government and the need for urgent change. Israelis, when they travel abroad today, they are ashamed to say they are Israelis. Who can bear a situation like that? But life in Tel Aviv goes normally, people are making money, getting rich. If they dont feel they need to change, they will always vote for the right. They have to feel the need to change and that will come through economic and academic boycott.
But life in Tel Aviv goes normally, people are making money, getting rich. If they dont feel they need to change, they will always vote for the right. They have to feel the need to change and that will come through economic and academic boycott. Note the writer states that "if they don't feel the need to change, they wwill always vote for the right," but TA, which he saysis living normally and prosperously, is practically the last stand of the Israeli Left. Muddled thinking. What loss do these academic jerks cause Israel by leaving?