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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]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/j.veit-wilson<http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/j.veit-wilson>/