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The article by David Newman however seems highly problematic. While enhancing mutual understanding is commendable, Newman appears to assume that the promotion of contact leads to greater understanding and ultimately might bring about conflict resolution. As others have noted, the ineqaulities in terms of power, military strength etc. in this conflict suggest this is a somewhat naive assumption. Of course it's problematic. And naive. But there are no situations in which there are equalities of anything. All understanding and communication happens on an unequal basis. Newman might be wrong. But it is equally naive to assume that some Habermasian situation of 'perfect communication' can exist in reality, and therefore to deny any contact until something approaching that exists. This sounds too much like the ludicrous (and in practice untrue) claims by western governments that 'we do not negotiate with terrorists.' Of course 'we' do. And neither an assumption of progress through contact nor of strengthening the powerful can be made in advance of any actual contact. Communicating means taking a risk. We do it all the time. We just have to try to work out when... Newman also generously suggests that "not everyone associated with the pro-boycott campaign was anti-semitic". This could be interpreted as a dangerous slur implying that many of them are. Newman proceeds to explicitly link the boycott debate with anti-semitism. While there is a clear need to be mindful of the implications of actions and utterances giving succour to racists, there is also a need to ensure that political debate is not stifled It's a tricky one. Newman is well over the top, but I'm afraid that some of the most prominent original instigators of the boycott have said and written anti-semitic things, or repeated false claims that implied the same. This doesn't mean that everyone else supports those statements (continued p.94...) It is of course very easy, especially for an academic, to argue the simple political philosophical truism that criticising the actions of a state is not to attack the religious beliefs or the individuals that that state contains. Yet, despite our supposedly critical orientation, and our ability to take apart and discover the 'reality' behind so much other supposedly non-racist of non-prejudicial discourse to find the deeply nasty sentiments hidden deeper down, we so easily take such glib superficial statements from our friends and colleagues as if they were simply and self-evidently true, in a ways that we would not allow for say, an unemployed guy living on a council estate in London who says 'I'm not a racist.' As critical scholars, we can't allow special pleading for any individual or group including our own that should exempt them from the same scrutiny and critique. I don't know whether people are 'really' motivated by prejudice on any side of any conflict, but I suspect it's more people than we think, and certainly more people than are prepared to admit it - particularly in this case when we are dealing with educated people who know the 'right things to say' and can provide the references to back them up. That's one of the reasons why I can't be part of any organised campaign (for or against) this boycott now, and I'll stick to support for humanitarian and peace-building activities, because neither camp has any sense of their flaws and limitations and seem to be becoming mirrors of the wider political situtation in which two racist, prejudiced, heavily armed and violent sets of protaganists seek to justify any action they take in terms designed to appeal already and in advance to set ways of thinking. On a more general point it seems logical that an academic boycott might have limited, if any impact. However, as others have noted, it might be seen as simply one element in a broader campaign opposing the policies of the Israeli state. Yes, but every aspect a campaign needs to be discussed according to its ethics and effectiveness. Just defining something as part of campaign does not automatically make it better or remove then need for discussion. I'm very tired of this discussion. I think it's a dead-end and we have to explore other ways of 'doing the right thing' here and supporting those who being crushed by racist US-backed Israeli state terrorism and racist Arab-backed Palestinian parastate terrorism, and enabling the people involved and affected (and mostly that's not the self-indulgent and cossetted likes of us) to find a solution.