A Nobel laureate and Palestinian academics on Natfhe's proposed boycott of Israel

If the urge to boycott is irresistible, why not boycott academics in Sudan, where a government-supported militia rapes and murders blacks? Why not boycott academics in Saudi Arabia, where no Jew or Christian is allowed to become a citizen? Why not boycott academics in Iran, where courts throw Jews into jail on trumped-up espionage charges? For that matter, why not boycott academics in all countries that have adopted Islamic law (sharia), which discriminates against women and makes it a capital offence for Muslims to renounce Islam?

Perhaps one could look beyond the issue of discrimination and boycott academics in North Korea, which has the most repressive government on Earth, or those in Gaza and the West Bank, where a government of terrorists has just been elected.
Yet for the past decade it is only Israel that British academic unions have considered boycotting. I can attribute this only to a really spectacular moral blindness, a hatred of Jews or both.
It is never a good idea for academics to boycott colleagues in other countries on political grounds. During the Cold War, American and Soviet scientists were careful to keep intellectual communication open; this not only served the cause of science, but promoted personal relationships that led to initiatives in arms control. In a similar spirit, when I ran the Jerusalem Winter School of Theoretical Physics we did what we could to recruit Arab students from Muslim countries whose governments discriminated against Jews. We never dreamt of boycotting them.
The Natfhe draft proposal blames Israel for "construction of the exclusion wall". This barrier does impose a nuisance on both Arabs and Jews. However, it is not being built because Jews do not want to associate with Arabs. It is because they do not want to be murdered by them.
There was no thought of a wall until the intifada in 2002 reached new heights of brutality. In fact, the Israeli wall is not very different from the 13-mile "Peace Line" in Belfast, built to curb violence between Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods. Even though incomplete, the barrier works: it has already greatly reduced the number of deaths of Israelis at the hands of suicide bombers. Since the wall saves lives, one marvels at the callousness of a call for Israelis to die so that Arabs will not be inconvenienced.
The other sin that the Natfhe draft proposal lays at the door of Israel is "discriminatory educational practices". I cannot conceive what is meant by this. Israel‘s universities are open to its Arab citizens on the same terms as its Jewish citizens, and Arab students attend the secular universities of Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in large numbers. Of course, non-citizens are treated differently. The state universities of Texas naturally give preferential treatment in admissions and tuition charges to citizens of Texas. But no one has proposed to boycott Texas academics on the grounds of discrimination against Oklahomans.
Israel is the only true democracy in the Levant, and it is the only country in the world whose very existence is threatened by its neighbours. Let no one think that the issue is the Israeli presence in the West Bank or Gaza.
The issue is the Jewish presence and, even worse, Jewish success, in the midst of Islam. Jews were massacred by Arabs in Palestine before there was an Israel, and Israel was attacked again and again when the West Bank and Gaza were entirely in Arab hands. Saudi Arabia and Syria consider themselves still at war with Israel, while Hamas and the President of Iran openly call for Israel‘s annihilation. Far from meriting a boycott, Israel deserves the support of academics, especially in a country such as Great Britain that did so much to preserve democracy in two world wars.
If Natfhe does call for a boycott of Israeli academics, then I would have one request of its members. It is to include me among those boycotted. I would consider it an honour.
Steven Weinberg is professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin in the US. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979.
‘Help to resist apartheid‘
At this time of escalating colonial repression, coupled with a particularly inhumane and illegal siege, Palestinians will be eagerly following Natfhe‘s national conference when it convenes on May 27. They are heartened by the growing movement for a boycott, divestment and sanctions.
The Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel salute the British academics who have proposed a motion to boycott Israel, to be tabled at the conference in Blackpool. We believe that this is a courageous initiative. It comes at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that the international community, as represented by the centres and institutions of global power, is incapable of delivering justice to the Palestinian people. The only hope rests with initiatives from international activists for justice in Palestine to put pressure on Israel to end its oppression of Palestinians.
Israeli academic institutions are implicated in the various forms of oppression exercised against Palestinians. Israeli research institutes, think-tanks and academic departments have historically granted legitimacy to the work of academics who advocate ethnic cleansing, apartheid, denial of refugee rights and other discriminatory policies against Palestinians, whether in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, inside Israel or in exile.
Collaboration and co-operation with the intelligence services, the Army and other agencies of the occupation regime is part of the routine work of the Israeli academy.
Furthermore, no Israeli academic body or institution has ever taken a public stand against the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, nor have academic institutions or representative bodies of Israeli academics criticised their Government‘s longstanding siege of Palestinian academic institutions. Indeed, the current regime of economic sanctions and other collective punishments imposed upon an entire society by the Government of Israel, with grave complicity from the US and the European Union, have gone without notice in the business-as-usual world of the Israeli academy. Nor has the academy raised its voice against racism within Israel, as exemplified by the recent ruling of the Israeli High Court upholding a ban on the reunification of Palestinian citizens of Israel with their spouses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and therefore infringing, on ethnic grounds, on the basic human right to choose one‘s partner.
The Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is endorsed by the most important federations and associations of academics and professionals and is supported by dozens of civil society institutions in Palestine. Like the Palestinian civil society‘s widely endorsed call for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, it is based on the same moral principle embodied in the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa: that people of conscience must take a stand and use civil resistance to bring an end to oppression. Palestinians are appealing to academics, professionals, artists and other activists to work towards bringing an end to a regime that practises colonial oppression and discrimination against its Palestinian citizens and that denies the rights of Palestinians to return to their homeland.
We hope that Natfhe members will join the growing international movement by showing that business cannot be conducted with the Israeli academy until it takes an unequivocal stand against the forms of oppression practised by the Israeli state. This is what conscientious British academics did more than 20 years ago during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa; this is what we hope they will do to help resist Israel‘s version of apartheid.
Until it effectively ends its complicity, the Israeli academy - as a major institutional upholder of the prevailing order - cannot expect exemption from the boycott. Boycott and divestment are the only non-violent forms of action available to people of conscience the world over. We salute those who recognise that, since justice for Palestinians cannot be expected from the international centres of world power, they must organise to further the cause of justice and genuine peace.
This is an edited version of an open letter issued by the Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.