Extending the Boycott

M. Shahid Alam, a professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston, has this essay in Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly. He's taken a personal interest in the international academic boycott of Israel. But his zeal for the cause, motivated by "the massacres [sic] in Jenin and the wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure in West Bank cities by invading Israeli forces," didn't sit well with some of the colleagues he tried to enlist.

...[M]ost of the friends on my mailing list ignored the call. Only two responded, and both were more than a little troubled that I should support such a thing. One described this campaign as "destructive", another objected that this was an "attack" on academic freedom. And once my name was on the list of signatories, I promptly received two pieces of hate mail, one of them from India.

A few days later I came across a counter petition initiated by Leonid Ryzhik, a mathematics lecturer at the University of Chicago. In an interview published in the British newspaper The Guardian on 27 May he said that the boycott campaign was "immoral, dangerous and misguided, and indirectly encourages the terrorist murderers in their deadly deeds". And in the New York weekly The Nation for 5-12 August, Martha Nussbaum, an eminent American philosopher, wrote that she felt "relaxed" to be in Israel, where she had gone to receive an honorary degree from the University of Haifa, "determined to affirm the worth of scholarly cooperation in the face of the ugly campaign".

Will wonders never cease? This guy actually found some academics who opposed the boycott. And in clear, concise, unambiguous terms, at that. Not that any of that made an impression upon Prof. Alam.

Having declared my support for the academic boycott of Israel, I believe I must now explain why I can not view this campaign as "destructive", "ugly" or supportive of "terrorist murderers". On the contrary, I see it as a moral gesture, part of a growing campaign by international civil society to use its influence to awaken Israelis to the ugly and destructive reality of the occupation, which has now lasted for more than 35 years and shows no sign of ending any time soon. At last, the cumulative weight of Palestinian suffering has begun to break through the crust of Israeli protestations of innocence. Although tardily, the world's conscience is now preparing to engage Israeli intransigence.

A "moral gesture." This, from a man whose problem with the "unprovoked" (in scare quotes) attacks on 9/11 was that they robbed him of his "invisibility." As for the "world's conscience," well, Mr. Alam has been on sabbatical for the past academic year. Perhaps he's been vacationing in mystical mythical EUland.

Increasingly, the world outside the United States understands that Israel is not a 'normal' country. The Zionist movement sought to establish an exclusively Jewish state in Palestine, a land inhabited almost entirely by Palestinian Arabs in 1900. Since no people has yet been known to commit collective suicide, this could only be accomplished by conquest and ethnic cleansing. This is how Israel emerged in 1948 -- through the conquest and ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Palestinians.

Whoa, ok. So EUland was maybe just the first stop on a much more reality-deprived itinerary.

Yet this was not enough. Although Israel now sat on 78 per cent of historic Palestine, this fell short of Zionist goals. In 1967 this shortfall was corrected when Israel, after defeating Egypt, Syria and Jordan, occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Another, smaller campaign of ethnic cleansing was introduced into this second round of conquests.

Got that? You know, it can never be pointed out too often that the only "country" that has ever sat (and continues to sit) on anything like 78 per cent of historic "Palestine" is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Anyway, this exercise in quasi-historical fiction and self-justification starts to become really tiresome, so we'll fast-forward a bit.

... resistance... misery... forced to flee their homes... Bantustans [that's always a good one]... Apartheid... narrative of Palestinian dispossession... ['click']

Once this narrative is affirmed, once it becomes clear that the destruction of Palestinians was necessary -- and was always known to be necessary and accepted as necessary -- for Israel to emerge as an exclusive Jewish state, once it is admitted that the dispossession of Palestinians has involved wars, ethnic cleansing, massacres, villages destroyed, cities besieged, homes demolished, children maimed and killed, prisoners tortured, ambulances bombed, journalists targeted, municipal records destroyed, and trees uprooted, once all this destructiveness -- already accomplished, and more of it unfolding everyday -- is recognised then protestations about the "destructiveness" or "ugliness" of an academic boycott of Israel become insupportable, indeed unconscionable.

I would have to agree with this wholeheartedly. Once the narrative of complete and utter fabrication, of baseless lies and completely distorted versions of half-truths has been unremittingly, thoroughly and irrevocably beaten into the defenseless minds of those ready to accept these falsehoods without question, no other conclusion is possible. Next?

...Of necessity, dispossession is implemented by force, and it follows that resistance to the coloniser must also be violent.

The question, therefore, is not why do the Palestinians resist, nor why do they resist by violent means. There is a different question before the world's conscience: why have we for 50 years abandoned the Palestinians to fight their battles alone, beleaguered by a coloniser whom they cannot fight alone? Why have we allowed the Palestinians to be battered, exiled from their lands, herded into camps -- in villages and towns that have been turned into concentration camps -- exposed to the mercy of a coloniser who freely draws upon the finances, political support and military arsenal of the world's greatest power? In despair, marginalised, pauperised, facing extinction as a people, if the Palestinians now use the only defence they have -- to die in defence of their rights -- who is to blame?

Is there any doubt? By the way, ever wonder why the Jews were able to survive without their historical homeland for a few thousand years, but depriving palestianians of a homeland they never had in the first place would result in their immediate extinction? Nah.

If the world's conscience now shows the first signs of acting on behalf of the Palestinians, it is to be hoped that this will mitigate the Palestinians' deep despair. When young Palestinians learn that academics the world over and young people on campuses in Britain, France, Canada, and United States are stirring on their behalf, this will convince them that they are not alone, and, once they are so convinced, they may be persuaded to renounce their acts of desperation. The academic boycott of Israel uses non-violent means -- it leverages moral suasion -- to reduce the violence of the coloniser as well as that of the colonised.

There it is. In a nutshell. The road to peace between Israel and the palestinian Arabs that has been evading the great minds applied to this dilemma for so long is simple: extend the academic boycott of Israel. When young suicide bombers learn that academics all over the world have responded to their martyrdom actions by ostracizing geology professors from Ben-Gurion University, they will renouce violence, elect a democratic leadership and live happily ever after with their neighbors. But there's more.

There are people who are shouting "foul" at the academic boycott, saying that this curtails the academic freedom of Israelis. I will readily admit that it does: the boycott is expected to work by shrinking the international avenues available to Israeli scientists for pursuing their work. Still, it must be emphasised that this curtailment is temporary and that it will end the moment Israel ends its occupation. It is also limited in scope. It only seeks to limit some of the advantages Israeli scientists derive from their interactions with the global scientific community. It does not threaten any fundamental academic freedoms.

Someone, quick, tell Mona Baker. The boycott is only supposed to affect "Israeli scientists." Last time I looked, professors of literature weren't classified as scientists.

This infringement of academic freedom -- temporary and limited as it is -- must also be seen in a broader framework. I readily concede that academic freedom is an important value, and it is a value that all humane societies should cherish. But there are also other values that we should cherish, other values that may even be more important, more fundamental, than the right to academic freedom. I believe it is reasonable and moral to impose temporary and partial limits on the academic freedom of a few Israelis if this can help to restore the fundamental rights of millions of Palestinians -- their right to life, to their property, to their lands, to freedom of movement within their own country, to sovereign control over their destiny, and to equal treatment under the law. This can only be denied if we confess a disproportion in the value we accord to Israeli and Palestinian rights.

Forget Mona Baker. I think we'd better alert Sami al-Arian. He's not going to be too pleased with this argument. It's a slippery slope, after all, from this to "it's reasonable and moral to impose temporary and partial limits on the academic freedom of a few terrorist supporters and fundraisers if this can help to avoid the deaths of thousands of Israeli civilians and perhaps millions of Americans as well." What about the "sanctity of academia," you say? Glad you asked.

I refuse to be cowed by invocations of the 'sanctity' of academia. More than ever, universities now help to reproduce the power structures of their societies; they are a potent source of ideologies of imperialism, as well as of race and class exploitation. Israeli universities are no exception. Through their links with the military, the political parties, the media and the economy, they have helped to construct, sustain, and justify the Apartheid system. I might have hesitated in adding my name to the boycott if I knew that Israeli academics had taken the lead in organising rallies, in organising sit-ins, and passing resolutions protesting the occupation, or that they had refused to work on projects that serve it. However, on the contrary, Israeli academia on the whole has shown that it is a party to the occupation.

Whaddya mean he never left? He's where? Which sensory deprivation tank? Over there? Ok, thanks. Hey, Professor! Sabbatical's up. Time to come out now.

...Abandoned, isolated, beleaguered and unarmed, a few Palestinian men and women have responded to this massive force by weaponising their own deaths through suicide bombings, provoking still greater violence against themselves. But, paradoxically, this has also pushed world conscience into taking notice of the affront to humanity that is the Israeli occupation. The academic boycott is one small step the detribalised world is now taking to stop this affront, a step that all men and women who have risen above tribalism should welcome.

A few? Unarmed? And there's that "world conscience" thing again (nice symmetry, dude). But before the "world conscience" can be "pushed," you see, it has to materialize. So far, no evidence of that. Hey, I know. Let's get some of those "detribalized" Anglos, Saxons, Normans and Franks, not to mention the totally tribeless Hashemites, Alawis and Saudis or, better yet, some of Professor Alam's fellow tribe-averse Pakistanis. Maybe they can teach those backward Israelites how it's done.