I understand that Prof Veit-Wilson simply wanted to circulate his views and 
did not want people to express disagreement but presumably the rest of us 
can express our views to the rest of the list and discuss them freely.

I think Vanessa Fuertes makes some very good points succintly, to which I 
would add that in this matter it is not only the views of Israelis that 
should be heard but also that of Palestinians. Associations and trade 
unions of Palestinian academics have asked for an international boycott of 
Israel and its universities and expressed this to the UCU and have visited 
several British universities to explain their point of view.

I also want very briefly to challenge the idea that boycott of Israel is 
some form of unwitting antisemitism because it is a collective punishment 
of  Jews. Whatever one may think of the wisdom of boycotts this is a 
specious argument.

The international community through the UN and other organisations often 
has   trade and other forms of boycotts or blanket sanctions against 
specific countries such as Iraq, Iran, Burma, Zimbabwe etc. Whether one 
supports these or not - and the trade sanctions against Iraq are claimed to 
have cost hundreds of thousand of lives - it is not the case that such 
actions are racist (anti-Iraqi racism etc).

Moreover, a boycott of Israel does not involve - explicitly or implicitly 
-any views about Jews as such or any action directed at Jews as such 
(wherever they happen to be).

This argument about anti-semitism is important as there now exists a 
discourse arguing that severe criticism of Israel is a form of racism. This 
view is critically discussed in for example:

<http://www.thenation.com/article/myth-new-anti-semitism>

<http://antonylerman.com/tag/new-antisemitism/>

Best wishes

Tariq Modood


--On 11 March 2012 18:11 +0000 "Fuertes, Vanesa" <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

>
>
>
> I would like to respond to this email because there are a number of very
> important issues raised that need clarification.
>
>
>
> Israeli academics are not boycotted per se. The boycott is very clearly
> linked to institutions ? it is an “institutional boycott”[1] (with
> guidelines and criteria). Some Israelis have asked for such a boycott
> (boycott from within[2]; Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions[3];
> Alternative Information Centre[4], etc.). In fact, to deal with the
> growing impact of it, the Israeli state just passed a law that penalises
> individuals and groups that call or support the boycott[5].
>
>
>
> The opposition to the Israeli state from academics is very small[6] and
> they suffer greatly for speaking out against their government’s
> policies[7]. There is no doubt about supporting these voices, but again
> the boycott is not about individuals but institutions. Many cultural and
> academic institutions directly contribute to maintaining, defending or
> whitewashing the oppression of Palestinians[8], as Israel deliberately
> tries to boost its image internationally through academic and cultural
> collaborations. ESPAnet Israel[9], have settlement universities
> participating (including from the illegally-annexed east Jerusalem) such
> as Ariel University Center of Samaria, which is situated in Ariel illegal
> settlement[10].
>
>
>
> BDS does not blame everyone in a country for what their government is
> doing ? BDS is institution-focused, targeting those linked with the
> state, e.g. Israeli government Arab representatives have been boycotted.
> The power of BDS does not rely in each individual being boycotted (as
> they represent their institution/organisation which has links to the
> Israeli government) pressuring their government: if an institution cannot
> disseminate its work, if a sport club cannot perform without protest, if
> an orchestra cannot play uninterrupted, if companies cannot trade
> unhindered, etc., it is those institutions, those sport clubs, those
> orchestras, those companies, etc. that will exert influence on their
> government. That is the essence of how BDS works. BDS is also a tool for
> showing the world as well as the Israeli government that we will not
> tolerate injustice and that there is no ‘business as usual’ for countries
> in breach of international and human rights law.
>
>
>
> It is true that the Israeli situation is not the same as what happened in
> South Africa (SA), it is worse[11]: apartheid coexists[12] with a policy
> of ethnic cleansing, as an Israeli historian has described it[13].
> Although achieving equality in income for all people is important -as are
> other themes that ESPAnet Israel raises- in my opinion there is a very
> obvious issue that needs to be addressed within Israel. If we avoid it,
> we pretend it does not exist and we will contribute to its continuation
> for another 64 years.
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Vanesa
>
>
> __________________________________________________
>
>
> [1] Call for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel:
> http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869; Why boycott Israel?
> sociologist Lisa Taraki, a co-founder of the Palestinian campaign for the
> Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) speaks to Mark LeVine:
> http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/why-boycott-israel-7835; Introducing BDS
> movement - http://www.bdsmovement.net/bdsintro
>
> [2] Points of Unity statement - http://boycottisrael.info/node/2
>
> [3] Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) -
> http://www.icahd.org/?page_id=482
>
> [4] Alternative Information Centre (AIC) -
> http://www.alternativenews.org/english/
>
> [5] Israel passes law banning calls for boycott -
>
> http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-passes-law-banning-c
> alls-for-boycott-1.372711
>
> [6] British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) WHY
> BOYCOTT- http://www.bricup.org.uk/why.html
>
> [7] Books The last chance salon: why Ilan Pappe left Israel, ceasefire 3
> Feb 2011
>
> http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/book-review-pappe/
>
> [8] Shir Hever, 2009. Academic Boycott of Israel and the Complicity of
> Israeli Academic Institutions in Occupation of Palestinian Territories,
> AIC -  http://www.bdsmovement.net/files/2011/02/EOO23-24-Web.pdf
>
> [9] The 2nd Annual Conference of ESPAnet Israel Social Policy in Israel:
> Research, Theory and Practice, The Complete Conference Program
> http://www.yvc.ac.il/res/espanet_portal/%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%99%D7
> %AA_%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%94_%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%AA_5.1.pdf
>
> [10] http://www.ariel.ac.il/
>
> [11] Israel 2007: worse than apartheid, Mail & Guardian online, RONNIE
> KASRILS: COMMENT May 21 2007 00:00 -
> http://mg.co.za/article/2007-05-21-israel-2007-worse-than-apartheid
>
> [12] Tilley, V. (ed). (2009) Occupation, colonialism, apartheid?: a
> re-assessment of Israel's practices in the occupied Palestinian
> territories under international law -
> http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Research_Publication-21366.phtml
>
> [13] The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, an interview with Ilan Pappe,
> counterpunch Jan 2010 -
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/01/01/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine/
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> From: Social-Policy is run by SPA for all social policy specialists
> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Veit-Wilson
> [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 09 March 2012 17:07
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Israel, Palestine and boycotting.
>
>
>
>
>
> Readers concerned about the Palestinian situation may be interested in my
> recent experience in Israel, which arose from an invitation from an
> equivalent of the SPA, the ESPAnet Israel association, to address their
> 2012 annual conference on the subject of minimum income standards theory
> and methods. I was also invited to speak on constructing MIS to policy
> and research staff at the Israeli agency concerned with national
> insurance administration. It ought to go without saying that MIS is based
> on an egalitarian and non-discriminating approach to the implementation
> of minimum standards for all, and that is what the audiences expected
> from me and got, explicitly. I was also invited to three informal
> opportunities to discuss issues with several Israeli social policy
> colleagues, people who'll be known to some readers.
>
> Before I went, I was reminded that some UK colleagues are trying to
> boycott all contacts with Israeli academics, as a means of showing
> solidarity with Palestinians and as a form of pressure on the Israeli
> government to cease oppressing Palestinians. My judgement was that as
> Israelis who disapproved of their government's policies had not asked for
> such a boycott to help them in their fight against policies which they,
> too, deplore and oppose, I should accept the invitation to help them
> fight for better incomes for people of all ethnicities there. The Israeli
> situation is not the same as what formerly applied in South Africa.
>
> Two things I learnt in Israel deserve to be shared. One is that the
> social science academics and administrators I met were as strongly
> opposed to the policies and activities of the Israeli government and the
> extreme orthodox sects, as many readers are to the policies and
> activities pursued by past and present UK governments in social policy
> and towards people in Nothern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, or against
> the BNP, to name but a few places in which soldiers under UK command or
> extremist groups have committed comparable acts. People constantly
> emphasised that the Israeli government, dependent on extreme far-right
> coalition support, is completely impervious to other considerations or
> pressures [except perhaps the US government], and there is an enormous
> range of publicly and forcibly expressed critical views of the government
> which have little effect. Readers might be helped to check, for instance,
> the Haaretz English language website for a perspective. Many of those I
> met were supporters of Peace Now and of the tent city occupations last
> year, and are mystified how anyone could tar them with the same brush as
> the government.
>
> So the idea of boycotting Israeli academics to influence Israeli
> government actions seems to be like, for instance, Germans boycotting UK
> academics because they disapprove of what the Cameron government is doing
> to people in poverty and to the NHS [or what the BNP does], and to act as
> a sanction against what the UK government does in Afghanistan. I think we
> would be surprised to learn that anyone thinks we academics have such
> power over the UK government or the BNP and should be collectively
> ostracised for failing to use it, and hurt at the loss of contact with
> those we thought of as colleagues if not friends in the shared struggle
> against racism and oppression.
>
> The other thing hit me even more forcibly, though perhaps that was my
> naivety and others are familiar with it. I have never understood how
> anyone can be so stupid as to confuse opposition to Israeli government
> actions and policy with antisemitism, since they are so obviously quite
> distinct. However, what became clear through these conversations was
> this. Opposing an identifiable perpetrator is clear and justified [as we
> do] BUT as soon as one says, I can't identify who the perpetrator is so
> I'll punish/boycott everyone in that country or of that ethnicity,
> religion etc, it becomes precisely the collective punishment that we
> generally oppose and which Jews in particular hate because it was a
> favourite measure used by the Nazis. The moral is that the more we fail
> to discriminate between perpetrators and opponents in Israel, and the
> more we campaign to boycott all Israeli contacts including opponents of
> government [our allies], the more we use the collective identifier of
> being Jewish rather than of being culpable -- and so we appear to be
> antisemitic. It's worth giving this aspect more consideration than it has
> had, though naturally I realise that those who oppose the existence of
> Israel as a state for various reasons may not be able to disentangle
> their opposition to the state from the antisemitism it resembles.
>
> Nothing I heard undermines support for boycotting clearly-identifiable
> targets, such as goods mislabelled Israeli products which are actually
> produced in the illegal West Bank settlements. Similarly, avoiding
> contact with known perpetrators as a means of bringing home to
> individuals the consequences of their acts may well be justified. But I
> returned even more strongly convinced that the more contact we have with
> Israelis who oppose their government and want a just peace with
> Palestinians, and the more we give them our support as well as supporting
> the Palestinian cause in the various ways we do, the better for our
> common struggle.
>
> [Explanation: I thought this subject relevant to this list because my
> invitation was for social policy purposes by a reputable social policy
> professional body, and so other readers may find themselves in a similar
> position and have similar concerns. The note is a personal opinion and
> not intended as a polemic, and anyone who wants to know 'where I come
> from' in reporting this experience and my reactions to it may find it
> helpful to know that I'm a Quaker and social democrat, an
> anti-authoritarian and believer in consensual solidarity and collective
> action based on as careful and insightful analysis of causes and effects
> as is practicable. Readers who don't share these moral and ideological
> beliefs --   I'd prefer not to get into an argument about it as I know it
> arouses very strong feelings among some colleagues, feelings about the
> injustice and immorality of racism and oppression which we share but
> where we evidently disagree on appropriate tactics to combat it in the
> Israeli instance.]
>
> John VW.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> From Professor John Veit-Wilson
> Newcastle University GPS -- Sociology
> Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, England.
> Telephone: +44[0]191-222 7498
> email [log in to unmask]
> www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/j.veit-wilson/
>
>
>
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