“Boycotting Israeli universities: A victory for bigotry” – Haaretz – By Alan M. Dershowitz – Dec. 17, 2013
Singling out Israelis for an academic boycott is not only a blatant example of double standards; it is an act of complicity with the enduring prejudice against Jews.
The American Studies Association has just issued its first ever call for an academic boycott. No, it wasn’t against China, which imprisons dissenting academics. It wasn’t against Iran which executes dissenting academics. It wasn’t against Russia whose universities fire dissenting academics. It wasn’t against Cuba whose universities have no dissenting academics. It wasn’t against Saudi Arabia, whose academic institutions refuse to hire women, gay or Christian academics. Nor was it against the Palestinian Authority, …
whose colleges refuse to allow open discourse regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No, it was against only academic institutions in the Jewish State of Israel, whose universities have affirmative action programs for Palestinian students and who boast a higher level of academic freedom than almost any country in the world.
When the association was considering this boycott I issued a challenge to its members, many of whom are historians. I asked them to name a single country in the history of the world faced with threats comparable to those Israel faces that has had a better record of human rights, a higher degree of compliance with the rule of law, a more demanding judiciary, more concern for the lives of enemy civilians, or more freedom to criticize the government, than the State of Israel.
Not a single member of the association came up with a name of a single country. That is because there are none. Israel is not perfect, but neither is any other country, and Israel is far better than most. If an academic group chooses to engage in the unacademic exercise of boycotting the academic institutions of another country, it should do it in order of the seriousness of the human rights violations and of the inability of those within the country to seek redress against those violations.
By these standards, Israeli academic institutions should be among the last to be boycotted. …
Lees verder: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.563920
“Le boycott des universités israéliennes : une victoire pour le sectarisme” http://www.tribunejuive.info/israel/le-boycott-des-universites-israeliennes-une-victoire-pour-le-sectarisme
Haaretz – foto: Prof. Alan M. Dershowitz