Check the air for flying pigs, because the New York Times is taking Israel’s side on an issue. Okay, they really should be backing Israel in this instance, because journalists and academics are supposed to be bias-free, impartial automatons (or at least bias-free). But I’m just not used to seeing a NY Times editorial that actually backs an Israeli stance. And on a Sunday! The highest readership day of the week!
The University and College Union, a newly formed British union of college teachers, shamefully called last week for a boycott on contacts and exchanges with Israeli academic institutions. That follows on the shameful call in April by the National Union of Journalists in Britain to boycott Israeli goods.
It is hard to imagine two organizations that should be less given to such nonsense. Who would respect the judgment of a scholar who selects or rejects colleagues on political grounds? Who would trust the dispatches of a reporter who has been openly engaged against one side of a conflict? The unions argue that they have an obligation to demonstrate labor-union solidarity with the oppressed, as they did in opposing apartheid. That is absurd.
Of course, here is where the pig falls back to earth:
First, Israeli journalists and academics are among the most dedicated critics of their own society. Second, the lack of similar “solidarity†by these unions with any other oppressed or suffering people in the world, and there are plenty, reduces these gestures to an exercise in hypocrisy, or worse.
Don’t you see? They shouldn’t boycott the Israelis because they already think the right way! And the Times editorial writer manages to again emphasize that fact before closing:
Critical thinking and well-thought-out criticism are intrinsic to good scholarship and good journalism. These boycotts represent neither. Posturing like this only alienates the very forces in Israeli society that should be encouraged and offends the calling and honor of journalism and academia.
Too bad the Times can’t simply stick to the principle of its own industry, and say that a boycott of journalists and academia is anathema to the free exchange of information, which the Times has fought for for decades. No, they have to add the caveats of rightthink to the reasons why the boycott is wrong.
I think the boycott is wrong for many reasons, not least of which is the continued delegitimization of Israel. I have no caveats. But then, I’m not very big on nuance. Never have been.
Perhaps Israeli academic associations should announce a counter-boycott of UK institutions. After all, in many scientific fields, Israeli researchers and their projects are far more important than their UK counterparts. In neurology alone, Israelis lead the world in MS, ALS and Parkinson’s advances. Israel produces more advances in electronic physics than the UK. In water conservation and recycling, Israelis again lead. Business start-ups – the Israelis leave the Brits in the dust. At their present rate of technical innovation, the British might have to resort to falling back on their culture, becoming some sort of giant Shakespearian/Victorian theme park. Warm beer, anyone?
chsw
Of course, many of the Israeli leftists would join the British boycott if they could think of a way of boycotting themselves.
Be fair,Meryl, and include the British academics’ boycotts of China for its illegal and genuinely genocidal occupation of Tibet and Saudi Arabia for its overall oppression ofwomen.
“Be fair,Meryl, and include the British academics’ boycotts of China for its illegal and genuinely genocidal occupation of Tibet and Saudi Arabia for its overall oppression ofwomen.”
Neither of which ever existed. We’re not so far gone yet that we feel obligated to invent stories out of the blue just to pretend there is a balance where there clearly is none.
The boycotts never existed, is what I meant.
I’m going to have to stop using pronouns entirely, because I can’t seem to keep them unambiguous.
Tat, Alex was being sarcastic. It’s his raison d’etre. That, and waiting for Lucy Lawless to show up at his door on a rainy night and ask if she can get out of those wet clothes.
When asked about the latest British boycott, the speaker for the Foreign Ministry of Israel should just play a laugh track, and walk off sneering at the idiots.
Then go to the British government, quietly, quietly, and mention that Israeli cooperation with British academia, industry, and media will be harder and harder to come by in the future …