More on the British academic boycott

When even the Economist thinks there’s something that smells funny about the attempted academic boycott of Israel, well, there is.

But in Israel many academics, on both left and right, are as mystified as they are enraged. Israel at present has a centre-left government that proposes a two-state solution for the Palestine conflict. The Palestinians have voted into office an Islamist government under the Hamas movement that says it aims to end the existence of the Jewish state by a policy of armed struggle. By general consent, moreover, Israel’s universities enjoy far greater academic freedom than any in the Middle East. Why, in these circumstances, should Israeli academics be shunned while those from the other side are welcomed?

Because the vote is perceived as a generalised attack on all Israeli academia, it has also created some embarrassment for Israeli scholars on the political left. Gary Sussman, a social scientist at Tel Aviv University, said that in the new climate created by the vote, charges that the Israeli peace movement is a “fifth column” would have greater credibility. Among supporters of a boycott, there were probably some who wanted to change Israeli policy, and end the occupation of the West Bank, while others were simply against the existence of a Jewish state, Mr Sussman says. The British vote had lent credibility to those who put all external critics of Israel in the second camp.

That is almost certainly true. The Anti-Defamation League, a movement which fights anti-Semitism, has placed some dramatic newspaper advertisements to underline its case that the singling out of Israel by British academia—at a time of terrible misdeeds in Darfur, Zimbabwe and Iran—can only reflect prejudice. Menachem Klein, a political scientist and veteran of Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives, says academic boycotts are not always wrong—but Israel’s misdeeds had not merited such a harsh response. The more venerable parts of the British academic establishment seem to agree: there have been condemnations of the UCU vote from the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Universities UK, which groups all universities’ vice-chancellors.

British supporters of a boycott cannot claim that they did not expect the swiftness of the reaction. In April Britain’s National Union of Journalists voted in favour of a boycott of Israeli goods, by 66 to 54—as part of a protest against last year’s war in Lebanon. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate at the University of Texas, instantly dropped plans to visit London’s Imperial College in July, saying it was “hard to find any explanation other than anti-Semitism” for the union’s move.

The Economist is no fan of Israel. This article speaks volumes about the lack of merit of the case for boycotting Israel, and only Israel.