On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Hilary Rose wrote:
> Despite my admiration for Baruch Zimmerling's magnificent critical work
> analysing Israeli policy and the particular delights of Sharon he and I
> just don't agree about academic boycotts. I do support him and his
> colleagues under this monstrous attack from Netanyahu.
Thank you for your generous support, Professor Rose. How precisely this
support shlould be expressed? By boycotting my institution and making it
more depended on the state? I would like a direct and serious answer to
this question, without diverting the dicussion to other issues.
> I do however think
> that the academic boycott supports our Palestinian colleagues basic human
> rights and their academic freedom which is under terrible attack from The
> Israeli state.
I would like if you can explain me not in gerneral, abstract and
emotional terms how boycotting my institution will support the
Palestinian academic freedom.
Maybe if you can clarify this crucial point, I'll join you, because this
cause is very important for me.
> There are particular circumstances where an academic boycott can play a
> useful role. South Africa was one such occasion as acknowledged by leading
> ANC figures and today's Israel is another.
Yes? Are you sure that the academic boycott caused the fall of the
apartheid regime? It is as a very intersting thesis, which I love to be
support by some hard evidences. So, be good with me and provide me
references about. For my best knowledge the boycott of the major SA
economic products was tyhe major cause of change of the regime. The
academic boycott's only effect was the weaken of the progressive elements
inside SA.
> The action incidentally we called for involved personal ethical action of
> not collaborating with Israeli academics ( or rather to be more precise
> academics attached to Israeli institutions as the boycott was instututional
> not personal ) in EU Framework research and about trying to get Israel
> excluded from the ERA until it started working to wards a just peace.
Institutional and not personal? An interesting but very flawed distincton,
as far as we all persinally working in the framework of institutions.
> Oh dear bracketing Campus watch, a nasty retro McCarthyism, well backed
> with money in with the the difficult personal ethical decisions about what
> does and what doesn't constitute supporting the boycott would be comic if
> the issue wasn't so serious. Listen to yourself.
I do, but also you do the same. Both boycotts' ultimate consequence lead
to limitation of academic freedom.
> If we are going to make comparisons - when the nazi geneticists were
> developing their ideas they were in constant intellectual exchange with
> their USand UK colleagues who swapped scientific ideas even while their
> German colleagues were getting into unspeakable proposals. From where I sit
> I wish that generation had boycotted them and indeed I wish the nazi
> geneticists had not so easily been allowed to resume their academic high
> positions within German post war. They were nothing lesssthan the
> 'scientific' theorists of genocide. Most of us will have read Muller Hill
> Procter and Weindling etc But the very idea of an academic boycott came
> into existence after that - maybe maybe academics learnt something?
It is indeed an instructive case but I fail to see the connection with the
debate case. It is indeed a shame that British geneticists collaborated
wwith their Nazi fellows.
> The other idea of excluding the Brits from Framework networks because of the
> breach of international law in attacking Iraq - well given how much
> proportionately the Brits like the Israelis get in resources from that
> programme yes it could hurt. So not to be discounted out of hand.
Now you twist the ethical discourse to material cost-benefit argument.
Well done?
> The
> difficulty there is that the majority of Brits were probably against the
> attack ( 2million on the streets was a historical first) so the problem is
> Blair et al. not the people - similarly with the Spanish.
Another interesting rhetorical twist: from academe to "the people". Well,
let's tallk about "the people" who are "PROBABLY against the attack." I'm
daily watching the BBC world service and despite your two millions
demonstrators and all the scandals around the war (see Dr. Kelly's
suicide?) Blair esq. have enough parliamentary support to continue the
war. Doesn't the British parliament the reflection of yours people's
will?
> The sad thing is
> that by contrast Baruch and his fellow courageous critics are relatively
> speaking a handful ,and the majority of Jewish Israelis still support the
> government and their apartheid regime. That is a not a small difference.
Perhaps. Now you want to damage also the minority (39% accordinng the
most recent poll) who wants to live in peace alongside a soveriegn
Palestinian state.
> Hey how about giving one another a break and spending our energy on
> attacking our common enemies? Sharon Bush and Blair for starters!
OK. Give me the break. Great!
> Let a thousand flowers bloom as someone under a current cloud once said.
Except me?
Zimmerling :-)
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