Boycotting no alternative to engagement
Outside Imperial, massive industrial action is taking place by academics across the UK. Not only are the AUT (Association of University Teachers) and NATFHE (National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education) the UK's two big lecturer unions entrenched in this action, but as of June they will be merging to form the UCU (University and College Union). Here at Imperial, the IC AUT branch will soon belong to this overarching organisation representing the UK's academia.
Only days before this momentous merger, NATFHE will be holding its annual conference. But instead of building unity in support of the ongoing strike action, a divisive motion is being discussed to cut off contact with Israeli academics unless they sign a declaration effectively denouncing their country. But this policy is not about human rights. Israel is singled out alone no mention of boycotting the King Fahd University in Saudi Arabia or having a test for academics from the University of Zimbabwe.
The boycott of Israeli academics has been pushed forward by the hard-left, trying to whip up anti-Israel sentiment by branding it an "apartheid state". Using such emotive language is both inaccurate and dangerous as it only serves to whip up tensions and anti-semitism, even though it is not anti-semitic in itself. What makes the NATFHE boycott worse still is that only Jewish Israeli academics will be subjected to this boycott with Christian and Arab Israelis exempt. This in turn exposes the fallacy of the "apartheid" slur: Israel is a mixed community, especially its universities with Arabs making up about one in five students at both Haifa and Hebrew Universities, and many prominent Arab faculty members.
Opposing this boycott does not mean supporting the illegal occupation of the West Bank. Far from it, the main groups fighting it in the UK and who fought off a similar boycott by the AUT last year are actively opposed to the occupation. By targeting Israel as a whole, the boycott fails to distinguish between the occupation and the right of Israel to exist and this is further exacerbated by the support proponents of the boycott give to the new Hamas government.
Israeli and Palestinian academics tend to be on the progressive side of politics. It was secret talks between Israeli academics and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation that helped start the Oslo peace negotiations. Academics also tend to be amongst those favouring a peace settlement and are the most critical of Israel's illegal settlements.
Engagement between Palestinian and Israeli universities is key to solving the Middle East conflict. It is only education that can help overcome the years of hate and violence between Israelis and Palestinians. A recent example of this positive work is a joint project between Dan Bar-On at Ben Gurion University in Israel and Sami Adwan at Bethlehem University in the West Bank. Working with both Palestinian and Israeli historians, they've put together a set of books that put the conflicting accounts of the Middle East's history side-by-side. By teaching history from both people's perspective, contradictions and all, students are not simply indoctrinated with a record that glosses over actions that either side would rather forget.
Boycotting and stigmatising Israeli universities will do nothing to help the Palestinian people. It will hurt those at the forefront of supporting peace and vindicate those who argue that being against the occupation can be equated with anti-semitism.
We need to engage with both sides if we want peace in the Middle East. Palestinian universities need our support, struggling under the conditions of the occupation. The peace movements on both sides need our solidarity not posturing that further inflames the situation.
