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| Over 150 faculty members from universities across the country vowed not to lecture in settlements |
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In the academics' letter, released yesterday, over 150 faculty members from universities across the country vowed not to lecture or participate in any discussions in settlements, and voiced support for the theater artists who have said they would refuse to perform in the West Bank city. "We will not take part in any kind of cultural activity beyond the Green Line, take part in discussions and seminars, or lecture in any kind of academic setting in these settlements," the academics wrote.
Signatories of the academic petition included Zeev Sternhell and Yael Sternhell, Nissim Calderon, Anat Biletzki, Ziva Ben-Porat, Yaron Ezrachi, Aeyal Gross, Shlomo Sand, Dan Rabinowitz, Neve Gordon and Oren Yiftachel. |
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| Anti-Israel 'Times Higher Education' supports boycott of Israel: "Is the Israeli academy facing a McCarthyite era?" |
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At the front line of the conflict are a handful of academics, such as Rachel Giora, professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, who support international calls for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
Pointing to “the growing number of Israeli assaults on Palestinians’ cities, towns, villages and refugee camps both within and outside the occupied territories”, as well as events such as the attack on Gaza during the winter of 2008-09 and the deaths on the “Freedom flotilla” in May this year, Professor Giora argued that “the state’s legitimacy has been gradually undermined”, leading to “waves of vocal criticism” across the world.
International condemnation has also created a far less comfortable environment for internal critics, she said, having led to “massive defence tactics aimed particularly at bashing academics supportive of boycott initiatives”.
Professor Giora said: “Repression of protest was no longer implicit. All hell broke loose.” |
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| Omar Barghouti, TAU student: If the occupation ends BDS will not end, because the right of return is its real cause |
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Omar Barghouti, founder of BDS, who attends Tel Aviv University, is interviewed on the video explaining how “it is extremely important, …an institutional boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions…” as we are shown Professor Steven Rose, founder of the British Committee for University for Palestine, arguing successfully for Al-Quds University Board to sever ties with Hebrew University, a relationship which Al-Quds president Sari Nusseibeh worked hard to establish.
Under the guidelines of a two-state solution, which has widespread support, both peoples can live together. Yet, Barghouti clearly states that “if the occupation ends” BDS will not end, because the right of return is its real cause. “I clearly do no buy into the two state solution,” Barghouti said. “This is something we cannot compromise on,” he said.
In his own words, Barghouti understands that “If the refugees were to return, you would not have a two state solution, you’d have a Palestine next to a Palestine.” |
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| Divest occupation campaign signed by Israeli Academics: [TAU] Rachel Giora, Anat Matar, [Weizmann] Kobi Snitz |
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We are a group of citizens and residents of Israel, Palestinians and Jews. We join our friends at Jewish Voice for Peace, and many others around the world, in urging you to divest from companies which profit from Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It is particularly as Israelis that we appeal to you, we find it extremely offensive when the occupation is said to be carried out in our names or for our sake.
It is likely that you are not aware that your funds are invested in companies such as Caterpillar and Northrop Grumman. Companies like these play a crucial role in the decades long continuing dispossession of the Palestinian people, whether by selling bulldozers used for destroying houses or delivering spare parts to airplanes which are regularly deployed against civilian population. |
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| Israeli Bill Reflects Frustration With Academics Who Support Boycotts |
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An effort to discourage Israeli public-university professors and others from supporting boycotts of the Jewish state is roiling the country's academics.
While an academic boycott and other efforts to isolate the country have long been debated, recent public condemnation of Israel's botched military raid on a flotilla of ships bound for Gaza has heated up the political situation.
Israeli legislators, feeling embattled by hostile world opinion, are considering a series of measures responding to what they regard as inappropriate sanctions against their country and its leaders, some of whom have been threatened with arrest for alleged war crimes. |
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| Knesset promotes anti-boycott bill |
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| The Knesset on Wednesday approved in a preliminary hearing a bill meant to deter Israelis from taking part in boycotts of Israel. The bill is slated to apply to anyone who will initiate or promote a boycott of individuals, factories, companies or organizations in all Israeli territories, apart from the West Bank. The vote was virtually unanimous. |
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| Witch-hunt Begins in Israeli Schools and Colleges |
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Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva who called for an academic boycott of Israel last year, has reported receiving death threats, as has a school teacher who refused to participate in Mr Saar’s flagship programme to encourage high-school recruitment to the Israeli military.
Daniel Gutwein, a professor of Jewish history at Haifa University, said: “A serious red flag is raised when the education minister joins in the de-legitimisation of the academic establishment. This is a method to castrate and abolish Israeli academia.”
Prof Gordon, who wrote a commentary in the Los Angeles Times a year ago supporting a boycott, said Im Tirtzu had contributed to a growing “atmosphere of violence” in the country and on campuses.
Prof Gordon said: “I have tenure and Im Tirtzu cannot easily get me fired. But they are trying to become the ‘guards at the gate’ to make sure other academics do not follow in my path.”
Only three Israeli acadmics have so far openly endorsed a boycott, he added, with many others fearful that they will be punished if they do so. But Im Tirtzu and its supporters were using the issue as a pretext for cracking down on academics critical of rightwing policy. He called Israel an increasingly “proto-fascist” state.
Prof Gordon cited the recent case of Assaf Oren, a statistics lecturer and peace activist who had been told he was the leading candidate for a post in Ben Gurion’s industrial engineering department until right-wing groups launched a campaign against him.
In a further sign of what Prof Gordon and others have labelled a McCarthyite climate, MPs in the parliamentary education committee -- which has come to closely reflect Mr Saar’s views -- summoned for questioning two head teachers of prestigious schools after they criticised official policies. |
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| Article by a Jewsih pro-Arab journalist: Israeli academics hit back over bid to pass law that would criminalise them |
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Daniel Gutwein, a history professor at Haifa University who is one of the signatories, described the minister's intervention as an attempt "to make Israeli academia docile, frightened and silent".
Although the BDS campaign – in various forms – has been running for over half a decade, it has become an increasingly fraught issue inside Israel in the past year since a small number of academics publicly declared support for a boycott, including Neve Gordon, author of Israel's Occupation and a former paratrooper who was badly injured while serving with the Israeli Defence Force.
Speaking to the Observer last week, Gordon said that many Israelis saw support for the BDS as "crossing a red line". Adding that he had received recent death threats, he said: "I am worried about what is happening to the space for debate in Israel. I find that there is a proto-fascist mindset developing. One of the slogans you hear a lot now is no citizenship without loyalty. It is an inversion of the republican idea that the state should be loyal to the citizen."
"It's a different world to what it was even a month ago," says Kobi Snitz, member of an Israeli BDS group. "Suddenly, all sorts of people are supporting it – people that you wouldn't expect." |
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| Academics to Gideon Sa'ar: Don't withhold academic freedom. Sa'ar responded: Those who harm academic freedom are lecturers calling for boycott òáøéú |
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In a petition to Gideon Sa'ar, the Minister of Education, a group of 542 Israeli academics, requested that the minister does not act against lecturers who called for boycotts of Israel, for the sake of Academic Freedom. Although the petition declares not to show support in any boycott call, some of the signatories are those who do call for boycott.
Out of the long list, below are some names of leading anti-Israel activists since many years and it includes Haggai Ram, Micah Leshem, Dani Filc, Rachel Giora, Kobi Peter (Peterzil), Uri Hadar, Eyal Nir, Mike Dahan, Ilan Saban, Amir Paz-Fuchs, Raef Zureik, Uri Ram, Lev Grinberg, Yoav Peled, Anat Matar, Rafi Grinberg, Moshe Zimmerman, Daniel Bar-Tal, Yehuda Kupperman, Fredie Rokem, Galit Hassan-Rokem, Yali Hashash (student), Roni Hammerman, Tamar Katriel, Jacob Katriel, Julia Chaitin, Ofer Neiman (student), Ronit Marian-Kadishay, Ayala Shani (non academic, leading anti-Israel activist), Dudi Tzfati, Yuval Yonay, Kalman Altman, Marcello Daskal (Omar Barghouti's supervisor), Daniel Dor, Ran Hacohen, Yehoshua Rozin (non academic, anti-Israel Activist), Idan Lando, Haim Jacobi, Yossef Schwartz, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Ronit Lentin, Eva Yablonka, Dalia Sacks, Gadi Algazi, Hannah Safran, Anat Biletzki, and Yeela Raanan. |
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| Canada: Quebec teachers union promotes boycott of Israel - recently devoted more than one-third of its in-house magazine to condemning Israel |
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MONTREAL — One of the province’s largest teachers unions – the Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ) – recently devoted more than one-third of its in-house magazine – seven of 20 pages – to condemning Israel and supporting the international boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) campaign against it.
While a Quebec union being unfriendly to Israel may come as no surprise, the spring issue of Carnets stood out for the scope of its polemics and its use of vitriolic language.
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| Gideon Sa'ar, the Education minister vows to punish Israeli professors who back academic boycott, the government will act during the summer |
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A few days after saying he intends to take action against Israeli professors who call for an academic boycott of Israel, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar is scheduled to appear on Monday before the Knesset Education Committee to discuss the limits of freedom of expression in schools.
Sa'ar refused to provide Haaretz with details of what action he plans to take. His statements, made in the Knesset plenum Wednesday, "speak for themselves," a spokesperson said.
The comments came some time after Ben-Gurion University Professor Neve Gordon, a vocal proponent of an academic boycott against Israel, received a death threat through the mail. |
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| New bill proposed in the Knesset criminalizes BDS and targets Israeli academics who are calling for boycott against Israel |
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| The initiator of the bill, MK Elkin, explained that the law works on three levels. "The first is to confront Israeli citizens invoved in a boycott. For example, it can apply to Israeli lecturers who call for an academic boycott of Israel. The second level is about foreign citizens initiating a boycott action, then you can ban them from entering the country for economic activities. The third level is about foreign countries or the Palestinian Authority, initiating a boycott on Israel. In this case we can prevent the transfer of funds available to Palestinians and anyone who is damaged by the boycott can claim these funds. |
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| Weizmann's Kobi Snitz, TAU Anat Matar & Rachel Giora: "Open Letter to the Boston Museum of Science objecting to Sponsorship of Israeli Propaganda" |
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| Senior academics from Tel Aviv University, Weizmann Institute, and other top institutions around world denounce Boston Science Museum's sponsorship of Israeli exhibit, calling it propaganda campaign. 'This is an attempt to distract from Israel's war crimes and human rights violations,' they say |
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| Final list - Israeli Citizens Say: Do Not Approve Israel's OECD Membership Until It Abides by International Law |
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TAU: Gadi Algazi, Eli Fabrikant, Rachel Giora, Dr. Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Dr. Anat Matar, Dr. Yossef Schwartz, BGU: Dr. Idan Landau, Dr. Yeela Livnat Raanan, Eyal Nir, Eyal Niv, Hebrew U: Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Hili Razinsky, Amiel Vardi, Iaroslav Youssim, Dr. Ilana Hammerman, Prof. Hannan Hever,
Israeli Citizens Say: Do Not Approve Israel's OECD Membership Until It Abides by International Law
In May 2010 the OECD ministerial committee will vote on the admission of Israel as a member of the organization.
As Israeli citizens, we are concerned by the policies of the Israeli governments, policies which violate international law, violate the basic human rights of Palestinians under occupation and serve to instigate instability, violence and suffering in the Middle East. We are also concerned by the double standards applied by some countries in the international community, especially the developed countries, towards Israel's violations. Such double standards imbue violent and blatantly illegal Israeli policies of land theft, torture and physical abuse of civilians with an aura of legitimacy.
We believe that only when the international community makes Israel accountable for its actions, can we hope to see a change in Israeli policies.
As Israeli citizens, we wish to voice our strong support for the call issued to OECD countries by numerous Palestinian organizations, and numerous international organizations, including Palestinian solidarity campaigns around the world |
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| Legal opinion on the article “Academic Boycott” of Uri Yacobi Keller, an MA student at Hebrew University, posted by IAM on December 20, 2009 |
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Despite Keller’s caveats or words of caution in resorting to an academic boycott of Israeli universities, his entire article is one which provides for its justification and implementation. It is thus clearly an anti-Israel, anti-Zionist clarion call that promotes sympathetically the Arab cause (according to him, the “Palestinian” cause) and at the same time unjustly maligns the Israeli Defense Forces as something evil. In this respect, Keller shows symptoms of a psychological malady, enjoying the benefits of an Israeli university education while biting the very hand that nourished it. He is a sad reflection of what Israel’s academic society has become today.
As the citation of Keller’s article indicates, he has provided ample grist for the mill of TAU Professor Yossi Schwartz, the co-chairperson of the Board of the Alternative Information Center that expounds on “the Complicity of Academic Institutions in the Occupation”. Schwartz’s group and the activity he despicably promotes, together with the supporting article by Keller, are emblematic of the treason that afflicts and pervades a substantial part of Israeli academia against the State of Israel. These academics disregard and demean our existing legal rights to settle and rule Judea and Samaria, rights that were established under international law as far back as 1920, are also part of Israeli constitutional law, and are still intact today. |
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| TAU Adi Ophir and Michal Givoni in "Is Collaboration a Form of Collaboration?" Inside Higher Education |
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In a sign of how sensitive the situation has become, Zone Books has added a statement to its Web site as well as the book's page on the site of MIT Press (which distributes for Zone) to say that Zone Books received no support from and has no ties to the Van Leer Institute.
Kiley, Zone's general manager, said that the statement was added after Hanafi told him about the criticism of his role in the project and the view that it was somehow tainted by Israeli ties. Kiley not only added the statement to the Web site, but made a printed version and inserted it into 1,200 copies of the book in the warehouse.
Of the controversy, Kiley said: "I think it's sad and it's really discouraging, because we would hope that a book like this would serve to help ameliorate the situation or assist in some kind of dialogue, and I think everything has gotten so polarized. It's sad that there can't be some kind of middle space that would help." |
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| List of Israeli academics participating the "U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel" |
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Ammiel Alkalay, Queens College/ CUNY Graduate Center, Ryvka Bar Zohar, New York University, Hagit Borer, University of Southern California, Nava EtShalom, University of Michigan, Yael Korin, University of California, Simona Sharoni, SUNY Plattsburgh, Ella Shohat, New York University, Haim Bresheeth, University of East London, Uri Davis, Al-Quds University, Palestine, Emmanuel Farjoun, Hebrew University, Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University, Ronit Lentin, Sociology, Trinity College Dublin, Moshte; Machover, London School of Economics and Political Science, Anat Matar, Tel Aviv University, Ilan Pappe;, University of Exeter, Ur Shlonsky, University of Geneva, Kobi Snitz, Technion,
“In light of Israel’s persistent violations of international law, and Given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel’s colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate, adequate and effective remedies, and Given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions;
Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression, We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.
These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law |
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| Items on Israel's enemies from within: Prof. Rachel Giora, Dr. Anat Matar & Dr. Kobi Snitz of "Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within" |
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We are a group of Palestinians and Jews, citizens and residents of Israel, who are struggling to end Israeli apartheid and the decades-long occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. We are writing to express our unequivocal support of SAIA's admirable divestment campaign at Carleton University. We will stand by you, as SAIA struggles to insure that the Carleton University pension fund disinvests initially from five companies deeply involved in Israel's subjugation of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, in gross violation of universal human rights and of International Law. Four of these five companies went as far as supplying the crucial means of destruction for the Dec. '08-Jan. '09 Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
Since the beginning of the "peace talks" period, we watch with dismay the charade in which Israel and its backers abroad attempt to portray oppressor and oppressed as two equal sides in a conflict to be remedied if they would simply straighten out their mutual differences. International Law is crystal-clear but Israeli policy openly flouts the law, in grave violation of universally recognized conventions and basic human rights. In addition, the faux peace negotiations lend no voice to Palestinian refugees, who are still forbidden to return home and denied proper compensation for their land and property. This empty "peace process" likewise ignores Palestinian citizens and residents of Israel, who are not and never have been equal citizens under Israel's ethnocratic regime. |
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| New threats of academic boycott against Israel due to the upgrade of the status of Ariel College to a university |
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Left-wing Israeli academics protested that a new university would siphon away funds earmarked for other educational institutions and possibly hurt their relations with foreign academics, especially in Europe, where university groups have threatened to boycott Israel in the past over settlement policy.
Neve Gordon, a political scientist at Ben-Gurion University and member of a group that sought a court order to cancel the Ariel College decision, called it "another instance of Israel deepening its roots in the West Bank".
"You create facts on the ground, then say we can't return these areas. It's a part of the old wall-and-tower approach to building settlements," Gordon told Reuters in a reference to the Zionist strategy of building outposts to claim territory.
He also criticised Barak personally, saying he was ignoring his own left-wing Labour party's past commitments to a deal on Palestinian statehood: "I thought Barak was for a two-state solution," Gordon said. "But apparently he is not."
Yaron Ezrahi, a professor at Hebrew University, called the decision the “academisation of the occupation”.
Amal Jamal, the head of political science at Tel Aviv University, said the upgrade would also highlight the extent to which universities inside Israel colluded with the West Bank college. “There is strong support for the college among some academics at Israeli universities, which co-operate with it in holding conferences, conducting research, supervising doctoral students and teaching,” he said.
LONDON – Israeli-British Professor Haim Bereshit, one of the initiators of the British academic boycott against Israel more than two years ago, had slammed Defense Minister Ehud Barak's decision to recognize the Ariel College as a university.
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| Israeli academics endorsing academic boycott of Israel: Emmanuel Farjoun, Hebrew U; Rachel Giora, TAU; Anat Matar, TAU; Kobi Snitz, Technion; & Pappe |
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The United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was formed in the immediate aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, bringing together educators of conscience who were unable to stand by and watch in silence Israel's indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions. Today, over 500 US-based academics, authors, artists, musicians, poets and other arts professionals have endorsed our call....
Israeli academics listed among the organization's International Endorsers have also joined us, including Emmanuel Farjoun, Hebrew University; Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University; Anat Matar, Tel Aviv University; Kobi Snitz, Technion; and Ilan Pappe now at Exeter. |
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| UCU hold 'boycott' meeting: The spectre of a wide-ranging boycott of Israel has been raised again by the University and College Union. (U.K) |
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While the union skirted around passing a full-on boycott motion, in line with legal advice it had been given previously, delegates agreed to hold an “inter-union conference of boycott supporters to investigate the implementation of the strategy within the law, including an option of institutional boycott”.
Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “It’s astounding that after repeated legal warnings that a boycott of Israeli academics would be discriminatory, UCU is still spending its members’ fees on promoting such a boycott to academics and trades unionists. |
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| Norway university won't boycott Israel |
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The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) unanimously voted against an academic boycott of Israel at a meeting on Thursday.
Had the proposal passed, NTNU would have been the first Western university to sever ties with Israeli universities.
"As an academic institution, NTNU's mission is to stimulate the study of the causes of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and how it can be resolved. This means that the university is also dependent on being able to cooperate with Israeli academics and hear their views on the conflict," the 12 board members said in a statement released by the university. |
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| Boycott News: Norway U boycott vote in a month / Anat Matar signed a boycott letter / Omar Barghouti's PACBI boycott / Sussex students boycott |
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*Norway university to vote next month on boycott of Israel
*[Tel Aviv U, Philosophy] Anat Matar signed an open letter to the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, asking to cancel their performance in Israel
*[Tel Aviv U, MA student, Ethics] Omar Barghouti's PACBI against the agreement between the University of Johannesburg and Ben Gurion University
*SUSSEX STUDENTS VOTE TO BOYCOTT ISRAEL
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| The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel congatulates Neve Gordon and other Israeli Academics for their support |
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Israeli support for BDS, and in particular
academic and cultural boycott of Israel, is to be
welcomed. Long before Gordon’s statement
supporting BDS, staunch Israeli supporters of
Palestinian rights such as Rachel Giora, Ilan
Pappe, Haim Bresheeth, Oren Ben-Dor and
Tanya Reinhart had embraced boycott and
defended it against Israeli critics, particularly
leftists in the academy [2]. Israeli artists’ and
academics’ endorsement of concrete boycott
actions called for by international academics and
artists in the past few years is well known. The
recent formation of the group Boycott!
...First, it should be noted that some Israeli
supporters of BDS studiously avoid the political
framework set by the Palestinian BDS movement
by casting their support for BDS as a strategy to
end only the 42-year military occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. For example, while
some Israelis do employ the term colonialism or
apartheid, they limit these terms’ application to
the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, not to
historic Palestine which now encompasses the
state of Israel. Such a formulation sidesteps the
issue of the right of return of Palestinian
refugees, as well as that of the legalized and
institutionalized system of racism and
discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of
the Israel It thus not only fails to adhere to the
comprehensive rights-based approach adopted in
the 2005 Palestinian Civil Society Call for
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel,
but also ignores the UN-sanctioned rights of the
great majority of the indigenous people of
Palestine. The Palestinian call advocates nonviolent
punitive measures to be maintained until
Israel meets its obligation to recognize the
Palestinian people's inalienable right to selfdetermination
and fully complies with the
precepts of international law by ending its
occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and
dismantling the Wall; recognizing the
fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian
citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting,
protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian
refugees to return to their homes and properties
as stipulated in UN resolution 194 [4].
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| U.K academics try AGAIN to launch an Israeli university boycott |
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Academics will attempt to relaunch a boycott of Israeli universitiestomorrow at the University and College Union's annual conference inBournemouth. It's the ninth year running that the deeply contentiousproposal has surfaced, but this year it comes after the Israeli assault onGaza and a wave of student protests at 35 universities across the UK.
Two motions, numbers 28 and 29, call for a boycott of Israeli academics.The main motion, 29, was compiled by academics at Brighton University, theCollege of North East London and the University of East London. It accusesIsraeli educational institutions of "complicity … in colonisation andmilitary preparation". |
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| Israeli acdemics who are "Peace activists" spread lies and call the singer Leonard Cohen to boycott Israel |
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Israel is facing one of its most immoral historical moments. Its ruthless, criminal bashing of the Palestinians has met with little international criticism or curbing. The silence of most of the world’s governments continues to embolden successive Israeli governments to commit more violent acts. Israel has violated numerous international laws, but so far for Israeli Jews life in Israel goes on as if nothing happened. Indeed, your people, Cohen, have built “a new Dachau, And call it love, Security, Jewish culture”, as you have so perceptively put it yourself in ‘Questions for Shomrim’,[1] but only a few voices have been raised against these injustices.
It is left for us, citizens of the world, to condemn Israeli atrocities and crimes against humanity. Dissociating ourselves from Israel’s brutal policies is the only non-violent way now to avoid becoming complicit in the killing, the wounding and the maiming, and the robbing of Palestinians. Faced with all this and more, Palestinians are calling on all people to support their struggle for their basic rights. |
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| The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which launched the Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign, adopts the Petition Issued by Israeli Academics |
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This important petition (below) issued by Israeli academics provides further support for PACBI's consistent denunciation of the Israeli academy for its complicity in the system of oppression against Palestinians and its silence about the long-standing violation of the basic freedoms — including the academic freedom — of Palestinians.
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| Living in a Hostile Environment |
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What about the boycott of Israeli academics? If an individual endorses the proposal for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, then he/she expresses a view which is misguided and, to many of us, deeply unpleasant. This does not suffice to place it in the category of harassment. However, if someone denies access to academic forums to Israelis simply because they live and work in Israel, or have Israeli citizenship, then they are not only generating a hostile environment. They are engaging in racist (in the extended sense of nationality-based) discrimination.
It is worth recalling a relevant incident in this context. In 2002 Mona Baker, then a lecturer in translation studies at UMIST, dismissed two Israelis from editorial boards of journals which she owns and publishes, because of her objections to Israeli Government policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. This was an act of blatant discrimination. |
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| Latest Call For Academic Boycott of Israel a 'Cynical And Perverse Violation' |
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| This reintroduction of the call for an academic boycott of Israel by the UCU is a cynical and perverse violation of academic freedom and anti-discrimination principles. Four years after the first such academic boycott resolution, it is clear the UCU's anti-Israel activists remain as determined as ever to demonize everything and everyone Israeli, while shunning constructive measures to promote Israeli-Palestinian academic partnerships. |
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| On Wednesday, British UCU Congress debates academic boycott of Israel to demand of Jewish and Israeli academics that they explain their politics as a pre-condition to normal academic contact
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The motion asks colleagues “to consider the moral and political
implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating”. If Jewish and Israeli academics support the Palestinian point of view they will be protected from further action, if they are against it or non-committal then they maybe considered unsuitable for continued association.
It beggars belief that such a blatant “McCarthyite” demand which clearly is discriminatory and antisemitic and is also in clear violation of the UK Race Relations act is allowed to be published and debated by a union that prides itself on supporting academic freedom, and according to its rules “equality for all” and actively opposes “all forms of harassment, prejudice and unfair discrimination.” |
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| The Palestinian campaign behind the academic boycott against Israel
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| For the past few years student and academic groups in North America and Europe have been openly campaigning for the boycott of Israeli academia. Some actions produced results (even if not long lasting) and some were unsuccessful. It is important for us working towards the defense of Palestinians' human rights to learn from these experiences so we may meet our goals in the future. One thing is clear, the stakes are very high and all the major Zionist organizations are responding accordingly. |
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| The Academic Boycott of Israel is back in the UK |
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27 March 2008
Last Friday at their meeting the UCU national executive committee voted in favour of a boycott motion aimed at Israeli academic Institutions which will be discussed at the UCU annual congress at the end of May. |
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| Britain :Update on the University College Union and the academic boycott discussion |
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| 'We should be very clear that the legal advice only specified that organising a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and using union finances or other resources to consult members on a boycott was not legal.' It calls on branches and local associations to 'organise meetings on Palestine calling for direct solidarity with Palestinian educational unions and institutions as soon as possible'. |
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| The Return of the British Boycott Against Israel
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Two weeks after the British Association of University Teachers announced that it was stopping its efforts to impose an academic boycott against Israel for legal reasons, the sponsors of the boycott announced that they were renewing their efforts to impose it.
The leaders of the campaign to boycott Israel met yesterday in London at an event that drew some 150 people, mainly senior lecturers from universities across the UK. Among the speakers were also a number of Israelis, such as Dr. Oren Ben-Dor from Southampton University, Professor Ilan Pappe from Exeter University and Professor Haim Bereshit from the East London University |
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| Israel boycott illegal and cannot be implemented UCU tells members. 28 September 2007 |
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| UCU announced today that, after seeking legal advice, an academic boycott of Israel would be unlawful and cannot be implemented. |
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| New pariah on the block |
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The campaign for sanctions against Israel is growing. But it faces resistance and is less effective than it looks
FOR once, Israel's critics and cheerleaders agree on something: the Jewish state risks greater international isolation. Pro-Israel groups such as NGO Monitor and the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs say a new assault is on the way. In the other camp, Shir Hever of the Alternative Information Centre, an Israeli-Palestinian activist group in Jerusalem, says that advocating a boycott is no longer always treated as anti-Semitism. Both sides have a motive to exaggerate such claims. But “boycotts, divestments and sanctions” (known in the activist world as “BDS”) do seem to be growing. |
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| The Case for Academic Boycott against Israel / by: AIC
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The Case for Academic Boycott against Israel is an initial compilation of facts documenting the discriminatory practices implemented by the Israeli academic system, as well as this system’s active and ongoing involvement in the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Through this document, the Alternative Information Center (AIC) aims to support the Palestinian and international academic boycott campaigns with concrete facts and details proving that not only have Israeli academic institutions not publicly condemned Israel’s occupation, but that these very institutions are themselves part and parcel of Israel’s colonial system of oppression against the Palestinians. |
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| Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel within San Diego Women's Film Festival |
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My good friend Bassemah Darwish, who is a member of the jury of the San Diego Women's Film Festival sent me the following appeal:
She and fellow jury members, but in particular the Film Festival director, Jennifer Hsu (also a personal friend) are under severe pressure and attack by Israeli lobby groups and supporters in the US because they voted to observe an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel within the festival.
We could help them if we send short letters to the Festival's board of directors (listed below with contact details)
explaining why the Boycott of Israeli films in the festival is justified (give links to supporting documentation) and why they should reconsider their position of firing Jennifer as the Film Festival director.
If anyone of you know Israeli activists who support the Boycott campaign, please pass on this message and ask them to do the same |
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| The Israel-Bashing Club |
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Brussels
"Israel is an apartheid state," was the most often-heard charge, closely followed by calls for a boycott. The West should cut its economic ties with the Jewish state, the speakers urged, and engage the "democratically elected" Islamists now running Gaza.
No, this was not a Hamas rally somewhere in the Palestinian territories. This was Brussels, where the European Parliament last week played host to the "United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace. |
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| 'UK, US academic cooperation in jeopardy' |
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| A leading British academic and member of the University and College Union warned over the weekend that the UCU's call for an academic boycott of Israel could seriously damage working relationships between UK and US universities and colleges. |
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| Ilan Pappe in 'Israel boycott campaign momentum grows' |
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In response to Avnery's claims that the Israeli population would not be moved to reconsider the basic premise of Zionism by a worldwide boycott, Pappe argues a boycott "will not change this position in a day, but will send a clear message to this public that these positions are racist and unacceptable in the 21st century ... They would have to choose."
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| The ivory tower behind the Apartheid Wall |
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| In the last few weeks, university presidents across the US and Canada have rushed to issue statements about the proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions by the British University and College Union. They view this boycott as a serious violation of academic freedom. Yet, given the general failure of these leaders to comment on any number of infringements of academic freedom that have occurred in recent years, including those close to home in the form of the politically-motivated denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein and the colleague, Mehrene Larudee, who very publicly supported him, the harassment of Columbia University professors Joseph Massad and Rashid Khalidi, and the intimidation of faculty by Campuswatch, one might be excused for concluding that university presidents prefer to remain above the political fray and reserve their office for grave and important but non-controversial pronouncements on tsunamis. But now, even in the midst of the hot and hazy summer recess, university presidents have mobilized their most imposing academic rhetoric in expressing solidarity with Israeli academics and upholding the rights of all to engage in "an open exchange of ideas" and "freedom of association." |
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| US Congress berates British academics' Israel boycott |
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US lawmakers Wednesday slammed a boycott of Israeli universities promoted by pro-Palestinian British academics as an anti-Semitic step that would undermine Middle East peace efforts.
In a unanimous voice vote, the House of Representatives passed a resolution attacking the boycott call from the leadership of the University and College Union (UCU), Britain's largest trade union for academics |
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| Howard Jacobson: Those who boycott Israeli universities are doing intellectual violence - to themselves
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| No longer to listen is no longer to engage in the dialogue of thought. It disqualifies you as a scholar |
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| An Academic Hijacking |
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| Many of the academics who have been pushing the boycott most energetically are members of hard-left socialist-worker groups. These radicals devote more time and energy to international issues than to the domestic welfare of their own members, who have suffered a serious decline in salary and working conditions. Their pet peeve, sometimes it appears their only peeve, is the Israeli occupation -- not of the West Bank and, before its return, of Gaza but rather of all of Palestine, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. These are not advocates of the two-state solution, but of a one-state dissolution of Israel, with the resulting state being controlled by Hamas. |
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| We're Not Doing Enough To Combat Our Adversaries
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| Meanwhile, Brandeis, the "Jewish" university, gave Jimmy Carter a stand-alone platform to spout his anti-Israel views. And then there's the Forward - a Jewish newspaper that has previously honored me and in whose pages my work has appeared - which covered the latest British attempt to boycott Israeli academics mainly by focusing on the allegations of one Israeli-American academic, Dr. Yigal Arens, a professor of computer science who insists that he has been "boycotted" - disinvited to a conference at Ben Gurion University because of his anti-Israeli politics. This is passing strange since so many Israeli academics are themselves left wing and specialize in criticizing Israel. |
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| Britain's Anti-Israel Blacklist
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| The British boycotters may be frustrated that Israeli academics have not been influenced by their own government’s oppressive actions, but the same cannot be said of students at al-Najah University, for example, who fondly remembered the outbreak of the Intifada by constructing a macabre attraction called "The Sbarro Cafe Exhibition," named for the location of a 2001 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem pizza parlor where 15 Jews were murdered and dozens more wounded. Created not as a memorial but as an inspiration for further terror-laden savagery, the diorama included scattered pizza slices amid Israeli body parts, splattered blood, calls to martyrdom with Koran and Kalashnikovs close by, and, beaming out of a loudspeaker behind a mannequin version of an Orthodox Jew, the inspiring take on an oft-repeated Islamic exhortation: "O believer, there is a Jewish man behind me. Come and kill him." |
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| Deja vu - NAIVE ACADEMIC BOYCOTTERS VS. RUTHLESS OPPONENTS |
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| Of course, this inconvenient truth is not part of the Palestinian script of What Really Happened in the Middle East, and it is that script that the Economist writers want the boycotters to rewrite with the help of boycott opponent Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian president of Al-Quds University in east Jerusalem which hosts branches of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror organizations throughout Gaza and the West Bank. Perhaps together they can come up with a less blatantly anti-Semitic strategy which would not endanger important British academic and commercial interests. "When confronted with such unreasonable, aggressive, prickly Jews," the Economist seems to be saying, "one must tread lightly." Is the Economist following a familiar Anti-Semitic script? I think so. |
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| UK trade union backs total boycott of Israel |
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The UK's largest trade union, UNISON, advocated on Wednesday a total boycott of Israel over its continued occupation of Palestinian territories.
A statement issued by delegates meeting in Brighton read: "The conference believes that ending the occupation demands concerted and sustained pressure upon Israel including an economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott".
In addition, delegates called on the British government to press for an arms embargo against Israel. |
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| 51 Nobel Prize laureates against British boycott |
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| Petition led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel calls boycott 'shameful', says it encourages extremists, glorifies prejudices; Wiesel says more signatures to come. Israeli Foreign Ministry to distribute petition to offices around the world |
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| Israeli citizens who support UNISON’s boycott of Israel proposal |
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| We are a group of Israeli citizens who support UNISON’s boycott of Israel proposal. We are sending you a letter we wrote in support of the proposal. We circulated the letter among our networks and in a few days gathered 86 signatures of Israeli citizens. We decided to stop gathering more signatures and to send you the letter today so that you will have time to circulate the letter among your constituents before your June 19th meeting. We wish you well in your efforts, and thank you very much for taking action to try to bring the Israeli occupation to an end. We hope to keep in touch and we would be very happy to cooperate further with you on this matter. |
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| The JC identifies the key players in the escalating British campaign to boycott Israel |
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Israeli Haim Bresheeth, professor of media and culture at the University of East London, seconded the UCU motion, which called for consideration of the morality of ties with Israeli academia and for discussions on boycotting.
Prof Bresheeth told the JC that a boycott was not an easy decision. “I am Jewish and an Israeli, and I don’t wish harm on either side. But how long can this occupation go on?”
Characterising opposition to a boycott as insincere, he added : “What we are asking for is not violent. It is civil action against a military occupation.” |
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| Statement of Columbia University's President on the British Boycott |
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| At Columbia I am proud to say that we embrace Israeli scholars and universities that the UCU is now all too eager to isolate -- as we embrace scholars from many countries regardless of divergent views on their governments' policies. Therefore, if the British UCU is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish. Boycott us, then, for we gladly stand together with our many colleagues in British, American and Israeli universities against such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education |
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| The British call for boycott provoked the threat of legal action and counter-boycotts |
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Alan Dershowitz, the prominent lawyer and Harvard law professor, says he has mustered a team of 100 high-profile lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic to "devastate and bankrupt" anyone acting against Israeli universities.
"If the union goes ahead with this immoral petition, it will destroy British academia," Dershowitz told the Guardian last night. "We will isolate them from the rest of the world. They will end up being the objects of the boycott because we will get tens of thousands of the most prominent academics from around the world to refuse to cooperate and refuse to participate in any events from which Israeli academics are excluded. It will totally backfire." |
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| Boycott backlash begins |
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| UK academics faced an unprecedented backlash this week as a threatened boycott of Israeli universities raised the spectre of international sanctions against British goods and research |
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| To the UCU members - A day in the life of Hebrew U' |
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| Part of the motion called for a UK wide campus tour for Palestinian academics. Maybe on the basis of fair-mindedness the members of the UCU should spend a day at the cafeteria of the Hebrew University and try to come to grips with what it must be like to live under the constant threat of Palestinian terrorism, which not only ended nine lives that day, but has killed over 1000 Israelis in more than 25,000 attacks. It seems almost unbelievable that people who claim to be "academics" can totally ignore these indesputable facts and at the same time belittle themselves, by revering people who have made terrorism a way of life. |
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| Boycott a blessing in disguise |
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I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate some overjoyed far-left Israeli academicians, headed by Professor Moshe Zimmerman, Dr. Ilan Pappe, and their colleagues: Congratulations, dear colleagues, you succeeded big time.
You managed to make the world hate us, you managed to completely twist the truth regarding our difficult battle with Palestinian murderers, and you managed to find a scapegoat for a world that sees fit to ignore the genocide in Darfur, the cutting off of hands in Saudi Arabia, and executions in the Palestinian Authority. Perhaps now you will even get a tempting offer from a leading Islamic college. When we have the opportunity, I'll be glad to meet with you for a talk regarding freedom of speech, its boundaries, and manner of enforcing it. |
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| The Beneficial Side of the British Boycott |
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So to help these British boycotters, I have prepared a list of Israeli academics whom they can immediately begin boycotting:
Ilan Pappe (University of Haifa), Neve Gordon (Ben Gurion University), Oren Yiftachel (Ben Gurion University), David Newman (Ben Gurion University), Avraham Oz (University of Haifa), Anat Matar (Tel Aviv University), Anat Biletzki (Tel Aviv University), Ran HaCohen (Tel Aviv University), Moshe Zimmerman (Hebrew University), Yuval Yonay (University of Haifa), Yoav Peled (Tel Aviv University), Shlomo Sand (Tel Aviv University), Lev Grinberg (Ben Gurion University), Colman Altman (Technion, emeritus), Jacob Katriel (Technion), Ron Kuzar (University of Haifa), Yehuda Shenhav (Tel Aviv University), Kobi Snitz (Bar Ilan University), Menachem Klein (Bar Ilan University), Dan Rabinowitz (Tel Aviv University), Uri Ram (Ben Gurion University) |
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| A repugnant proposal / by Michael Yudkin and Denis Noble |
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| The boycott motion at the UCU makes a feeble gesture towards such an explanation by alleging "complicity" of Israeli academia in the occupation of the West Bank. In fact there is widespread opposition to the occupation amongst Israeli academics. Have a look (via Google) at the work of Neve Gordon, Lev Grinberg, Menachem Klein, Adi Ophir, Ilan Pappe, Yoav Peled, Dan Rabinowitz, Uri Ram, Yehouda Shenhav or Oren Yiftachel. Academics are prominent in all the major anti-occupation organisations. At last count 358 members of the faculties of Israeli universities had signed a petition on-line stating: "We wish to express our appreciation and support for those of our students and lecturers who refuse to serve as soldiers in the occupied territories." |
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| Support the Boycott! End the Occupation!
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We, Israeli professors for justice and peace, do hereby appeal to researchers, academics, scholars, and teachers in Israel and throughout the world to take a firm and clear stand against continuing occupation and denial of rights. We are of course referring to the continuing occupation of territories by Britain in which Britain clearly has no right to be. We demand that all British universities be boycotted and all academics at those
universities be boycotted until these same people and institutions come out clearly and openly in favor of immediate unconditional removal of all British occupation from these territories. We demand a moratorium on all funding of academic research in Britain by sources for funding everywhere and divestment from Britain in all its forms. |
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| British UCU congress voted this afternoon in favour of boycott |
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Delegates at the inaugural UCU congress voted this afternoon in favour of a motion calling for 'the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches for information and discussion'.
The delegates earlier overwhelmingly (just one vote against) voted to accept the recommendations of a report from a body set up in the fallout of the 2005 decision by AUT to impose an academic boycott of Israel |
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| Israel boycott launch in London falls flat |
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| However, pro-Israel groups doubted the call for a boycott would have much impact, particularly because of the increasing desire by British academics to work with outstanding Israeli universities. |
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| British Journalism v. Israel |
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| The National Union of Journalists (NUJ)—Britain’s main professional association of journalists and reporters—recently joined an international boycott of Israeli goods. |
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| Israeli academics off to U.K. to battle boycott bid
04/05/2007 |
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A delegation of Israeli academics will head to the U.K. later this month in a bid to fight a proposed boycott of Israeli universities by British academics.
Seven academics from six Israeli universities plan to meet with members of the 120,000-strong union ahead of its vote to boycott Israeli academic institutions at its annual congress in Bournemouth at the end of the month. The three-day congress is the first for the newly-formed University and College Union, a merger of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE).
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| Is an academic boycott of Israel justified? - By Michael Yudkin |
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The principle of the Universality of Science and Learning – that academics do not discriminate against colleagues on the basis of factors that are irrelevant to their academic work (such as race, religion, nationality etc.) – is well established and almost universally respected. To boycott academics by reason of their country of residence breaches this principle and harms the interests of the academics concerned. Two kinds of argument speak in favour of maintaining the principle of the Universality of Science and Learning: 1) that undesirable consequences would flow from violating it, and 2) that to harm people who are innocent of wrongdoing is morally unacceptable. Those who wish to boycott Israeli academics attempt to defeat the second type of argument by claiming that these academics are complicit in discrimination against the Arab minority in Israel or the occupation of the West Bank, and/or that Israeli universities suppress dissenting voices. Analysis of these claims shows that they are without serious substance.
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| The Upside-Down, Inside-Out World Of Israel Bashers |
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In case you missed it, college campuses in the United States, Canada and Britain recently hosted an “Israeli Apartheid Week,” during which prominent scholars and artists all got together to agree about the State of Israel’s beastliness.
That such nonsense is presented at places like Hunter College in New York City, the University of Toronto, and even at supposedly more illustrious venues such as Oxford and Cambridge is hardly shocking.
What is curious is the unprecedented growth of Israel-bashing in recent years – not merely at universities – and the increasing role of Jewish opponents of Israel in these events. |
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| Israeli Apartheid Week Comes to California
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| universities, a series of events staged by anti-Israel activists to equate the Jewish state with the racist regime of apartheid-era South Africa. Evidently, however, one week was not enough, and the campaign of demonization has now stretched into a third week, with California campuses the current location |
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| SOAS Palestine Society Presents: Israeli Apartheid Week
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De-Arabization of Land and De-Arabization of Jews.
Speaker: Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin
Professor of History, Ben Gurion University
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| More Israeli academics participating "Israeli Apartheid Week" |
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The 3rd annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) will take place in New York City from February 10-17 2007. It will be a week-long series of events organized by a coalition of different groups in the city and will feature lectures, film screenings, and cultural activities. Concurrent events are being held in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Participants:
TANYA REINHART, Emeritus, Tel Aviv University
GABI PITERBERG, Department of History, UCLA
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| University campuses in UK, USA and Canada launch Israeli Apartheid Week
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| Canadian teachers reject anti-Israel motion |
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| We must speak out - By John Berger |
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| Nurit Peled-Elhanan and Haim Bresheeth signed the Palestinian Filmmakers, Artists and Cultural Workers Call for a Cultural Boycott of Israel |
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We, the undersigned Palestinian filmmakers and artists, appeal to all artists and filmmakers of good conscience around the world to cancel all exhibitions and other cultural events that are scheduled to occur in Israel, to mobilize immediately and not allow the continuation of the Israeli offensive to breed complacency. Like the boycott of South African art institutions during apartheid, cultural workers must speak out against the current Israeli war crimes and atrocities.
We call upon the International community to join us in the boycott of Israeli film festivals, Israeli public venues, and Israeli institutions supported by the government, and to end all cooperation with these cultural and artistic institutions that to date have refused to take a stand against the Occupation, the root cause for this colonial conflict.
236.Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Israel
255.Prof. Haim Bresheeth, UK
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| The European Commission Rejects Boycott Proposed by Irish Academics |
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| British 'silently boycott' Israeli academics |
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The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom warns against a “silent boycott” in Britain against Israeli institutes of higher education.
The council said that Israeli researchers wishing to publish articles in Britain were asked to remove the name of which ever Israeli academic institute they belonged to as a condition for publishing their articles.
The latest “unofficial boycott” was initiated by the “Bibliography of Translation Studies" journal, owned by a British publishing house headed by Mona Baker, a supporter of the academic boycott on Israel. |
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| US teachers condemn Israeli boycott call |
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| The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is calling on Irish academics to oppose demands to boycott Israel. The union, which represents 1.3 million members across the US, sent a letter to four Irish teachers and academics unions, urging them to oppose the boycott which has been proposed by several Irish academics in recent weeks. |
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| Irish call to ban Israeli academia condemned |
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"The Irish government does not support any move to isolate Israel or Israeli institutions," a spokesperson for the Irish embassy in Tel Aviv told Anglo File. "Our aim is always to come to a maximum possible inclusive dialogue. We want to find a true solution to the situation and closing off dialogue would be counterproductive."
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| Oslo, Norway: University employees criticize Israel
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- I think it's cowardly of the UiO to not take a stand in the Middle East debate, but I'm not surprised, says Kaveh Ataei, chairman of Blindern SV.
Ataei wants the University board to discuss the possibility of an academic boycott of Israel. |
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| Boycott of Israel |
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Amongst the signatories:
Dr Meir Amor
Prof Hagit Borer
Tzvi Cohen
Neta Golan
Irit Katriel
Prof Moshe Machover
Dr Anat Matar
Yael Oren Kahn
Prof Tanya Reinhart
Inbar Tamari
Tirtza Tauber
Benjamin Zephaniah
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| Irish academics call on EU to stop funding Israeli academic institutions |
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In a letter published in the Irish Times today, (see below) 61 Irish academics from a wide variety of disciplines call for a moratorium on EU support of Israeli academic institutions until Israel abides by UN resolutions and ends the occupation of Palestinian territories.
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| Support for Sanctions from Israelis
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The following letter of support was issued in response to the resolution passed on May 27 by the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
"CUPE Ontario will, with Palestine solidarity and human rights organizations, develop an education campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and the political and economic support of Canada for these practices; Support the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194; Call on CUPE National to commit to research into Canadian involvement in the occupation and call on the CLC [Canadian Labour Congress] to join us in lobbying against the apartheid-like practices of the Israeli state and call for the immediate dismantling of the wall."
Signatories as of July 3, 2006 (out of over 100) include Jonathan
Amitay; Steve Amsel; Haim Baram; Hanna Braun; Ehud Ein-Gil; Prof. Emmanuel Farjoun; Dror Feiler, musician, artist; Pnina Feiler; Neta Golan; Jeff Halper; Matan Kaminer; Teddy Katz; Adam Keller; Hava Keller; Moshe Machover; Dorothy Naor; Israel Naor; Susan Nathan, author; Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz; Elena Wesley; Sergio Yahni; Rabbi Moshe Yehudai; Beate Zilversmidt. |
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| Israeli Academics Support Candian Boycott |
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As Israelis we express our support of the CUPE boycott of Israel, honor your courageous initiative, and fervently hope that it will set an example for many others to follow.
Jeff Halper, a retired professor at Ben Gurion University
Ofer Neiman, The Institute of Computer Science, The Hebrew University
Sergeiy Sandler, University Instructor, Beer-Sheva
Prof. Tanya Reinhart, Linguistics, Media and cultural studies Tel Aviv University
Elat Benda The Department of Philosophy Tel Aviv University
Prof. Yehuda Kupferman, Department of French, Tel-Aviv University
Haggai Katriel, Mathematics Department, The Hebrew University
Roman Vater, Tel Aviv University
Prof. Rachel Giora, Department of Linguistics Tel Aviv University
Michal Peled Ginsburg, Professor of French and Comparative Literatures, Northwestern University
Kobi Snitz Postdoc Ben Gurion University, Mathematics Department visitor at University of Maryland, Mathematics Department
Prof. Moshe Machover, Philosophy Department, University of London
Dr. Amos Goldberg, The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, the Hebrew University
Michal Schwartz, Professor of Neuroimmunology, Weizmann Institute
Nomi Shir, Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics, Ben Gurion University
Uri Katz, Department of biology, Technion
Anat Matar. Philosophy Department Tel Aviv University
Amir Orian, Visiting scientist from Technion at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Veronika Cohen, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance
Victoria Buch, The Fritz Haber Center & Department of Physical Chemistry, Hebrew University
Dr. Ruchama Marton, Tel Aviv University Medical School Institute for Psychotherapy
Dr. Diana Dolev. teaches at two schools of design in Israel Her PhD dissertation analyzed the militarization of the Mt. Scopus campus of the Hebrew University
Zalman Amit, a retired Concordia psychology professor |
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| Spreading Hate, Destruction & Terrorism.
The U.N.-NGO cadre.
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But there is a much darker side to the U.N.-NGO nexus than the rise of these obvious interlopers in NGO circles. It is the large number of NGOs that have been empowered by U.N.-accreditation to spread anti-Semitism, hate, and encourage terrorism from a U.N. platform. The call for boycotts and sanctions against Israel is a central plank of this campaign.
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| UK ban of Israeli academics lifted
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| A boycott of Israeli academics declared by a UK teachers' union in May was cancelled on Sunday after the union's merger with a lager body whose delegates oppose the motion. |
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| Thousands of academics oppose boycott of Israel
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| Today's Guardian carries a letter from up to 600 academics who, although condemning "Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza", oppose a boycott. It reads: "We oppose the inconsistency of blacklisting Israelis but adopting a different attitude to academics in the ... long list of other states that are responsible for equal or worse human rights abuses ... Natfhe and AUT are currently involved in a bitter dispute with university managements over pay. This boycott proposal degrades our unity at a moment when academics need to stand together." |
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| US lobby group enters Israeli academic boycott row
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A powerful American civil liberties group has called on US academics to boycott British lecturers who boycott Israeli universities.
In a backlash following this week's vote by the lecturers' union Natfhe to boycott Israeli academia, the Anti-Defamation League urged American universities and grant-giving bodies to "cut funding, support and contact with any academic who advocates a boycott of Israel."
The organisation's national director, Abraham Foxman, said in a statement: "Those who seek to damage and discredit their Israeli colleagues with a blacklist must know that there is a price to pay."
Meanwhile Anthony Julius, famous for his representation of Princess Diana and the successful defence of Deborah Lipstadt against David Irving, is acting as solicitor for the boycott's opponents in Britain.
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| The Communist connection to NATFE's Boycott
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Tom Hickey, a member of the Socialist Workers Party SWP was the one who proposed the motion.
Delegates also voted to pass a motion noting Respect’s success in the local elections. The motion said that Respect provided an “anti-racist, anti-fascist left alternative culture to New Labour and the BNP”.
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| Ontario boycotts Israel |
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| The Ontario division of Canada's largest union has voted to support an international campaign that is boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. |
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| Is Natfhe against Scientific Progress ?
by Professor Zvi Ziegler
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We may consider the repercussions and implications of this kind of boycott. Boycotters, who by their action demonstrate disregard for the principles guiding the scientific community, might be boycotted , and the process can get out of control, with many losers, and no winners.
To quote a prominent British Scientist , a Fellow of the Royal Society, Prof. Peter Kennedy, "the proposed motion is unethical, unfair, inappropriate and just plain wrong" .
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| Academic boycott debate returns to UK, Jerusalem Post |
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| Information from "The Academic Friends of Israel" which follows and acts against the boycott within the U.K |
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| this NATFHE motion 198C calling for a “personal boycott” should be withdrawn because it is inaccurate, dishonest, and in conflict with NATFHE's constitution by specifically advocating discrimination of one nation: Israel. |
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| New U.K. bid to boycott Israeli universities, profs |
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"The largest university and college lecturers union in Britain is likely to decide shortly to recommend that its 67,000 members boycott Israeli lecturers and academic institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israeli policy in the territories.
The boycott motion, which was drafted by the southeast region of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), will be brought to a vote at its annual national conference, which will be held May 27-29. It comes about a year after the last boycott by British lecturers..."
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| Toronto, Canada: ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK Monday, February 13 2006: Professor Uri Davis (Founder of Movement Against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine)
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The Arab Students’ collective is holding its second Israeli Apartheid Week from February 12th 18th in order to develop the understanding of Israel as an apartheid state and to build a boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid. The Israeli apartheid regime continues to deny
Palestinian refugees to return to their stolen lands; continues to
systematically discri minate against its Palestinian citizens, continues to entrench the walls dividing the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza into open air prison Bantustans, and continues to imprison over 8000 Palestinians at any time. The Palestinian people have continued to resist apartheid, and it is time for people in Canada and all over the world to stand with them. |
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| About Eyal Weizman, the Technion, Haifa: "Architects threaten to boycott Israel over 'apartheid' barrier" |
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| Eyal Weizman, the Israeli director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmith's College in London, urged action. "A boycott would be totally legitimate," he said. "The wall and the settlements have been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice and we should boycott any company which does business, any architects that participate - anyone facilitating these human rights violations and war crimes." |
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| Ford Foundation Will Pay for Parley Of Anti-Israel Scholars at Lake Como |
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Ford Foundation is paying for at least eight scholars who favored a boycott of Israeli academics to attend a conference scheduled for Monday at a villa on the shore of Lake Como in Italy.
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| Delay Sought Of Parley Seen As Anti-Israel |
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| Three major New York-based foundations sponsoring an academic conference in Italy that was scheduled to begin Monday are now calling for its postponement after the conference came under criticism as a forum for critics of Israel and after one of the articles circulated in advance of the meeting was found to have been what executives of two of the foundations called "an anti-Semitic paper by a Holocaust denier." |
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| Ford Foundation Funds Anti-Israel Event |
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The Ford Foundation is paying to send at least eight anti-Israeli scholars to a conference at an Italian villa.
A total of 21 scholars will meet in the villa in Bellagio, on the banks of Lake Como, to discuss academic boycotts and their relation to academic freedom.
More than a third of the participants publicly support boycotts of Israeli universities out of opposition to the Jewish state, according to the New York Sun.
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| The Palestinian Call for Academic Boycott Revised |
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| We, Palestinian academics and intellectuals, call upon our colleagues in the international community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid |
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| A very important conference: Academic Freedom
& the Politics of Boycotts, January 25th-26th, Bar Ilan University |
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Bar-Ilan to Host International Conference Analyzing Academic Boycott Attempts.
International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom Conference will Discuss Academic Freedom and the Politics of Boycotts
Following the successful campaign to persuade the British Association of University Teachers (AUT) to rescind its proposed boycott of Bar-Ilan and Haifa universities, Prof. Yosi Yeshurun, Rector of BIU and Chair of the IAB (International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom), has scheduled an international conference on Academic Freedom and the Politics of Boycotts.
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| Israel boycott feud resurfaces |
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| The British Committee for Universities of Palestine (Bricup), the pro-boycott organisation, is relaunching its campaign with a campus tour of public meetings involving speakers from Palestinian universities. The aim is to put the boycott back on the agenda by presenting the reality of living under the occupation, says Hilary Rose, one of the architects of the academic boycott and a founder of Bricup. |
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| Yehudit Har'el from the Hebrew University, Ilan Pappe from Haifa University and Yoav Peled from Tel Aviv University |
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| On July 19, 2005 took place at the Left Bank Club (Hagada Hasmalit) in Tel Aviv an open discussion on the issue of boycotts and sanctions against the Israeli occupation policy. The idea was to have an initial discussion of Israeli peace activists and peace groups on this issue, which is already the subject of sanctions campaigns held by various organizations around the world |
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| Palestine: Letter to AUT delegates |
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| Prof. Avraham Oz says: “ the repressive policies of my country against the Palestinian population, especially in the territories occupied in 1967, is appalling, racist, sometimes horrifying in its cruelty, and often having crossed the boundaries of war crimes....” |
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| European Jews for a Just Peace call upon Israeli academics to boycott |
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European Jews for a Just Peace, being a part of the international solidarity movement supporting the human and political rights of Israelis and Palestinians alike, calls upon Israeli academics to boycott the continuing presence of the Israeli army on Palestinian territory.
Academic freedom is indivisible. Yet for Palestinians the right of access to education at any level, let alone to freedom of speech at the highest level, is denied by Israeli authorities.
The signatories include:
3. Jacob Katriel, Professor Emeritus, Technion, Haifa, Israel
6. Mona Baker, Bir Zeit University, Israel
15. Dr. Anat Matar, Dept. of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University, Israel
37. Micah Leshem PhD, Psychology Department, University of Haifa, Israel
38. Dr. Michael Dahan, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
39. Prof. Michael Saltman, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, University of Haifa, Israel
40. Dr. Irit Katriel, University of Aarhus, Denmark (Israeli citizen).
41. Dr. Yehiam Soreq, Beit-Berl college, Israel
37. Micah Leshem PhD, Psychology Department, University of Haifa, Israel
38. Dr. Michael Dahan, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
39. Prof. Michael Saltman, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, University of Haifa, Israel
40. Dr. Irit Katriel, University of Aarhus, Denmark (Israeli citizen).
41. Dr. Yehiam Soreq, Beit-Berl college, Israel
51. Prof. Hanan Frenk, Dept. of Psychology, Tel Aviv University and Head of the School of Behavioral Sciences, The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
52. Professor Uri Hadar, Department of Psychology, Tel A viv University, Israel
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| The United Church of Christ to consider Israeli divestment |
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The United Church of Christ (UCC) will vote in July whether to pull the church’s investment money from U.S. companies involved in building Israeli settlements and security activities in Palestinian territories.
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| in a letter to the Editor, the Independent News paper / by DR OREN BEN-DOR, SCHOOL OF LAW UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
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| Sir: At its meeting on 26 May the AUT should extend its boycott to include all Israeli universities. These universities persistently marginalise the debate about Zionist crimes, by denying sufficient resources and opportunities for it to enter the public discourse in Israel. A proper academic platform would enable debating the monopoly that the Shoah (Hebrew, "catastrophe") has had on memory in Israel, thus leaving no room for the Palestinian catastrophe, the displacement of 750,000 people by Zionism's creation of the state. |
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| [alef] British group cancels boycott of two Israeli universities / Lev Grinberg
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| I must say that despite the fact that I am aginst the boycot (sic) I am very sad of the AUT cancellation. I am sad mainly for our Palestinian colleagues that were encouraged by the boycot (sic) and now they must be strongly discouraged. However more than sad I am also very upset with all my "poltical friends" that supported the boycot (sic) without taking in consideration the demages it will cause. Now the situation is even worst than before the AUT desicion, but this probable outcome was clear from the begining. The AUT Boycot (sic) desicion was an expression of our impotence and incapacity the design effective strategies of resistance against the Busharon Axis of Evil. |
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| Israeli boycotts revoked - AUT statement |
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After a lengthy debate involving deeply held views on both sides of the argument, AUT’s special council has today voted to revoke all existing boycotts of Israeli institutions.
AUT council has decided to base its policy on providing practical solidarity to Palestinian and Israeli trade unionists and academics, by agreeing a motion committing the union to having a full review of international policy, working alongside NATFHE and the TUC.
UK higher education has a long and proud tradition of defending academic freedom. The struggle to maintain academic freedom whenever it is under threat is one that AUT will always support and this principle will continue to guide our work.
Sally Hunt, AUT general secretary, said: 'It is now time to build bridges between those with opposing views here in the UK and to commit to supporting trade unionists in Israel and Palestine working for peace.' |
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| Bar-Ilan Fights for Academic Freedom in Response to the AUT's Decision to Boycott Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities |
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| The International Advisory Board (IAB) for Academic Freedom will undertake actions and steps to guarantee freedom of thought and expression in Bar-Ilan, as well as of other Israeli and non-Israeli institutions of higher education. |
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| Joint HU-Al Quds U. statement to counter British boycott |
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| Cognizant of the moral leadership universities should provide, especially in already turbulent political contexts, we, the President of Al-Quds University and the President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, have agreed to insist on continuing to work together in the pursuit of knowledge, for the benefit of our peoples and the promotion of peace and justice in the Middle East. |
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| Mishcon de Reya to AUT |
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We act for the following AUT members: Professor Terence Kavanagh, Dr Jonathan G. Campbell, Professor Geoffrey Alderman, Professor John Charap, Professor Ian Reid and Dr Eric Heinze.
Our clients' require the AUT to acknowledge the resolutions' invalidity, confirm that no implementation instruction will be issued, and provide the appropriate assurances in relation to the expenditure of AUT funds.
The resolutions are a threat to the AUT's integrity, as well as to the cause of academic freedom. Our clients are prepared to take the steps necessary to ensure that the threat does not become a reality.
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| Soas faces action over alleged anti-semitism |
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Grounds for suit: A row over a conference held at the college about the academic boycott of Israel titled Resisting Israeli Apartheid.
An article in the student magazine Spirit which said: "Those who benefit from the immoral actions of a colonial state in which they have chosen to reside cannot be considered as innocent".
The union's banning of Roey Gilad, an Israeli embassy representative, because of their policy which equates Zionism with racism. Professor Bundy overturned the ban.
...· Gilad Atzmon, a pro-Palestinian activist and musician, who gave a talk to students this month, arguing: "I'm not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act".
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| Legal warnings over Israeli boycott
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The Guardian has reported increasing concerns about
the legality of a boycott against academics working in
Israeli universities.
Before Friday's vote, Steve Miller, the deputy
vice-chancellor of City University, said there could
be problems for any academic who followed the boycott.
"I would have thought that any academic treated
differently on the ground of race would be in breach
of their university's equal opportunities policy," he
said. "I believe that for City University treating an
Israeli academic differently on the grounds of their
nationality would be in breach of our policy."
And following the decision on Friday Jocelyn Prudence,
the chief executive of the Universities and Colleges
Employers Association, said that the boycott "would
appear to run contrary to contractual law, race and
religious discrimination law, and academic freedom
obligations, which are built into the contracts of
staff in pre-1992 universities". |
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| Boycott threat to Israeli colleges |
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Jewish groups point out that last December the university played host to a conference entitled 'Resisting Israeli Apartheid', while Gilad Atzmon, a pro-Palestine advocate, gave a talk to students this month, arguing: 'I'm not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act.'
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| Jews resign over 'racism' in the NUS, England |
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| Allegations of anti-Semitism in higher education were brought to the fore this week as three Jewish officers resigned from the National Union of Students and leaders of the faith branded a proposed boycott of three Israeli universities "deplorable". |
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| Lecturers may boycott Israeli academics |
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| Israeli academics who refuse to condemn their government's actions in the occupied territories risk a boycott by the UK's leading lecturers' union. |
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| British Committee for the Universities of Palestine call for Boycott |
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Council resolves:
(i). To call on all AUT members to boycott Bar-Ilan University until it severs all academic links with the College of Judea and Samaria and with any other college located in an illegal settlement in the Occupied Territories.
(ii) That the boycott should take the form described in the Palestinian call for academic boycott of Israeli institutions. |
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| University of Wisconsin Faculty Call for Israel Divestment |
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| The Faculty Senate of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville adopted a resolution last week demanding that the University divest from companies that provide the Israeli Army with weapons, equipment, and supporting systems. |
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| The student union at the School of Oriental and African Studies is being accused of censorship after attempting to ban a senior Israeli embassy official from taking part in a debate later this month.
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Ms Meelu confirmed that the union set a policy last November which made the elimination of "foreign occupation, apartheid, [and] Zionism" as a prerequisite for peace a fundamental belief of the union. Hosting an official from the Israeli embassy would compromise this, she said in an email.
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| Cut All US Aid To Israel
Posted on: 11/25/2000 Jewish Intellectuals
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"We Jews, citizens of the state of Israel and of other countries,are sickened that the Barak government would let the war criminal Ariel Sharon enter a Palestinian area and provoke terrible violence.
Unfortunately this just illustrates the determination of the current Israeli government to keep Palestinians permanently separate, unequal, closed up in small territories, and exiled in foreign lands.
We protest the ever escalating violence against Palestinians.
We urge the US Congress to suspend all foreign aid to Israel." |
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| Zionism today is the real enemy of the Jews / Avi Shlaim |
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The obsession is to keep the whole of the Land of Israel in the hands of the Jewish people. This transformed the Zionist movement from a legitimate national liberation movement for the Jews into a colonial power and an oppressor of
the Palestinians.
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| Intelligence squelched - by Melanie Phillips
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In Tuesday evening I had the misfortune to take part in a high-profile and packed debate in London in the 'Intelligence Squared' series. The motion was 'Zionism today is the real enemy of the Jews'.
The fact was that by proposing this motion, Shlaim has associated himself with a statement which -- despite his denials -- singles out the Jews as having no right to their own country, and singles out Israel as the one country in the world whose existence is illegitimate. Zionism is today, as it has always been, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and Israel is its territorial expression. There are many different types of Zionism today, as ever; Sharon's version is but one. The motion condemned Zionism today, full stop. As a result, this debate will be used by the enemies of Israel and of the Jewish people to do them further harm -- and Shlaim, Rose and Hass made that possible.
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| the “3rd International Conference on An End to Occupation, |
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on behalf of a group calling itself the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and endorsed by 60 of the most important academic, cultural, professional and trade unions and associations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza
Oren Yiftachel, Israeli Professor of Political-Geography, Planning and Public Policy at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has built a reputation on exposing the dark side of Israeli urban and regional planning and the politics of Judaizing Israel/Palestine. Examples include attempts by the State and its founding elites to simultaneously incorporate and control minority immigrant groups (Mizrahi, Sepharadi Jews) within Israel's nation-building and State-building projects.
Yiftachel spoke of Israeli attempts to legitimize the truth on the ground and of Jewish blindness to their situation. He outlined 10 different types of Israeli citizenship that challenge the notion of Israel being a true democracy where the Ashkenazi Jews are on top. Orthodox Jews are second-class citizens, pseudo-Jews third, the Druze fourth, the Palestine Arab Israeli fifth-class citizens, the Bedouins sixth, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights residents seventh, Palestinians in the West Bank eighth, Gaza residents ninth, and labor migrants tenth on the so-called Israeli scale of citizenship, according to Yiftachel.
TA University professor Anat Biletzki, chair of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem stated that most human rights violations are carried out by Israeli policies and declared the Apartheid Wall to be the icon of the occupation. Ben-Gurion professor Yanni Nevo, also with the Co-existence Forum in the Negev spoke of the horrors of the crop sprayings in the unrecognized villages in the Negev and said that being Jewish and democratic was incompatible.
Nevo described Israel’s “Un-Recognition Policy” whereby the ancestral homeland and ancient villages of the Bedouin population of the Negev are not recognized and neither is their Israeli citizenship. This allows for mass expulsions and rejection of housing permits by the Israeli government so that the activity of demolition squads is justified. As a result basic shelter is denied to a desert population as well as State services such as electricity, water, roads, medical care, telephones and transportation.
“Today, when Bedouins plant crops they are sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup,” Nevo continued. “And against Monsanto recommendations this involves aerial spraying of crops, livestock, dwellings and people.” Nevo described a policy of ‘Chemical Treatment’ whereby the Bedouins have been dehumanized and treated with chemical aggression so that their land can be Judiazed. Health effects of the utilization of a weed exterminator on the population include birth defects and a variety of cancers such as Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. “This is not only non-democratic,” Nevo asserted, “but immoral experimentation on non-consenting individuals. They are weeding crops to get rid of the population,” Professor Nevo stated.
Yuval Adam, a student activist from Tel-Aviv University and founder of the Student Coalition claimed that in the past apathy reigned on Israeli college campuses but that is starting to change because some members of the student body now understand that remaining silent is to agree with Israeli policies. There is an emerging student movement for peace, he said, but the official response has been police brutality where protesting students are beaten up. Adam’s hope is that students will not be deterred and the movement will grow.
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| Linguists against boycotts / Ron Kuzar |
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Most of us strongly oppose Israel's continued occupation of the
West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. |
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| The 4th International Academic Conference on An End to Occupation, A Just Peace in Israel-Palestine:
January 3rd - 5th, 2005
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| A call for effective international pressure on Israel |
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Attached is an open letter to Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair, calling for effective international pressure on Israel, based on the understanding that Israel has neither the will nor the ability to end the occupation without such pressure.
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| On Dec. 5, some 270 academics from around the world convened in London |
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Israeli professor of history Ilan Pappe called on his academic colleagues to "boycott us." This may seem an odd recommendation coming from an Israeli scholar-indeed, someone likened Pappe's call to a "turkey voting for Christmas"! Pappe explained his action, however, by arguing that change will not come from within, that external pressure is essential for Israel to change. Although Israeli academics may be more liberal than the population at large, Pappe didn't believe that demand for change would come from this quarter. If Israeli academics actively were working for change, he explained, then the boycott might be seen as counterproductive. It was clear from several presentations, however, that Israeli academic institutions are part of
the problem. Support for the boycott also came from a handful of academics in Israel, some Israeli academics working abroad, and a significant number of Jewish academics.
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| Alarm at bid to revive boycott, 03 December 2004
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Dr Paulin was quoted in an Egyptian newspaper in 2002 as saying that "Brooklyn-born" settlers in the Gaza Strip and West Bank were "Nazis and racists" who should be "shot
dead".
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| Israel boycott row hits college. December 4, 2004 |
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London University School of Oriental and African Studies has come under fire for agreeing to host a conference tomorrow at which academics begin a campaign to break links with Israeli universities, significantly increasing an academic boycott of Israel.
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| Conference at Duke University equates Zionism, apartheid - Oct. 17, 2004 |
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A weekend conference urging divestment from Israel was set to wrap up Sunday at Duke University after a series of speakers who equated Zionism with South African apartheid and called for an end to a so-called exclusively Jewish state.
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| Anti-Israel Conference at the University of London
On December 5th 2004 |
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| Ilan Pappe, Israel, University Haifa |
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| An open Letter to Professor Menachem Magidor and the members of Israel's Forum to combat the academic boycott |
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Given the destructive nature of Israeli government action against Palestinian education and academic freedom, and your simultaneous expression of concern for Israeli academic freedom in the face of the boycott, we feel that it is only fair to ask the Israeli academic leadership where it stands on the issue of current Israeli policy as described above, and to share with us what Israeli academic institutions are doing to challenge the behavior of your government.
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| Open Letter from Faculty Members
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"We, faculty members from a number of Israeli universities, wish to express our appreciation and support for those of our students and lecturers who refuse to serve as soldiers in the occupied territories."
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| URGENT APPEAL FOR INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT: |
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The elimination of the Palestinian national presence west of the Jordan River is implicit in the long-term aims of the Israeli right wing
"Millions of Palestinians have been reduced by Israeli government policies to life in fearsome ghettos."
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| Break the Conspiracy of Silence, Act Before it is too Late
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Demand that governments end military assistance to Israel, suspend
economic ties, and support the prosecution of war criminals, and urge
other states to do so. |
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| Academic Boycott |
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We, the undersigned are defenders of Palestinian academic freedom and supporters of the academic boycott against Israel
Yuval Yonay (Haifa U) Bachrach, Riva, Clinical Psychologist, Beit Berl College of Education Dolev, Diana, , Wizo College for Design, Haifa Giora, Rachel, Professor of Linguistics, Tel Aviv University Israel Habib, George, Lecturer, School of medicine, Technion Haifa, Jablonka Eva, Associate Professor, Cohn Institute Israel (TAU?) Kraus, Vered, Professor of Sociology, University of Haifa Rabinowitz, Dan, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University
Tanya Reinhart (TAU) Pappe (Haifa U) |
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| Open Letter from Faculty Members endorsing Mutiny and Insurrection by IDF Troops |
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| We hereby express our readiness to do our best to help students who encounter academic, administrative or economic difficulties as a result of their refusal to serve in the territories. We call on the University community at large to support them. |
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| Sabra - Shatila Belgium |
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International support for the complaint in Belgium against Ariel Sharon and others responsables because of their alleged “crimes against humanity” in the massacre in Sabra and Shatila.
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| Sharon May Be Contemplating Crimes Against Humanity |
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| We, members of Israeli academe, are horrified by US build-up of aggression towards Iraq and by the Israeli political leadership's enthusiastic support for it. |
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| Boycotting Israel: Back to 1933? By Edward Alexander
The Jerusalem Post | January 7, 2003 |
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| Will the boycotters emulate the (occasional) pragmatism of their predecessors, or will they stick firmly to their principles in order to reduce Israel to pariah status? More importantly, will the European Union, many of whose prominent members either participated or acquiesced in the destruction of European Jewry 60 years ago, put a stop to the conspiracy of these spiritual descendants of those Max Weinreich famously called "Hitler's Professors," to expel the Jews (once again) from the family of nations? |
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| Battles rage on U.S. campuses for and against investments in Israel |
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The editorial is the latest item in a battle underway at some of the most prestigious universities in the United States. Petitions on the same theme as the UCLA student newspaper has been circulating at universities like Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Princeton, and University of California campuses. Counter-petitions have followed. Hundreds of faculty members have signed the pro-divesting petition and so have 6,000 students.
A number of Israelis, who belong to faculties in America well as in Israel, have added their signatures, including Prof. Immanuel Farjun from Hebrew University and MIT Prof. Yosef Grodzinski, of Tel Aviv University, and Ben-Gurion University Prof. Naomi Shir.
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| The Intifada Reaches The Ivory Tower: European Scientists Are Calling For A Boycott Of Israel
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| The manifesto was signed by over 270 European scientists, including about 10 Israelis. Although it is the most moderate of the boycotts being formulated these days against Israel, the manifesto aroused a great deal of anger in the Israeli scientific community. |
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