The National Post (Canada)
The terrible message being sent by this anti-Semitic action -- anti-Semitic because it will apply only to Israeli Jews, not Arabs or Christians -- is that the Jewish state will not be rewarded for taking steps toward peace and ending the occupation. Instead it will be punished....Instead of applauding Israel for taking courageous actions toward ending the occupation, British lecturers choose to attack Israel by blacklisting the nation's Jewish academics From now on, professors in the U.K. are not only permitted, indeed, they're instructed, to discriminate based on nationality and ethnicity. As the Jerusalem Post wondered, "Why is it that just as the Palestinians are about to receive the greatest unilateral concession ever from Israel they urge a boycott? It is hardly the manifestation of goodwill that would encourage Israelis to support yet greater existential risks." The London Guardian concurred, pointing out a troubling double standard: "Singling out Israel raises other questions. AUT members are not proposing, after all, to boycott universities in North Korea, Zimbabwe or Sudan, where the government has been accused of perpetrating genocide against its own people."
"I used to think that it didn't matter what we did," an Israeli moderate once told me. "They will hate us just as much even if we give back the whole West Bank as well as the Gaza." He paused and then continued: "I was wrong. It does make a difference. They hate us even more when we give more, because it confuses their image of us as totally evil. And our enemies see it as a sign of our weakness and their strength."
My friend was right. This academic boycott makes clear that when Israel does precisely what its detractors demand that it do, even then -- especially then! -- extreme left-wing academics will only despise Israel more for putting the lie to the professors' hate-filled views.
Comments