Source: Financial Times

by Jon Booneand & Rebecca Knight, 1st June 2006

The decision by the country's biggest lecturers union to boycott Israeli academics has been denounced as "anti-Semitic" by the president of Harvard University.

Larry Summers attacked the decision by members of Natfhe on Monday to support a boycott of Israeli academics who fail to dissociate themselves publicly from Israel's "apartheid policies".

He said: "There is much that should be - indeed that must be - debated regarding Israeli policy. And all views can be, should be and will be expressed by those in academic life.

"However, the academic boycott resolution passed by the British professors union in the way that it singles out Israel is in my judgment anti-Semitic in both effect and in intent."

He added that he hoped the decision would be repudiated "in the strongest possible terms" by scholars around the world.

Many groups have done just that, with the Israeli-led International advisory Board for Academic Freedom announcing that it was prepared to pursue legal avenues to overturn any boycotts.

Malcolm Grant, the president and provost of University College London, joined the chorus of disapproval saying he was "deeply worried" by the motion.

"I find it extraordinary that any academic union should attack academic freedom in this way. An academic boycott for political ends is in direct conflict with the mission of a university, and betrays a misunderstanding of our function."

The boycott is only an advisory motion to highlight the issue and ceases to be policy today when Natfhe officially merges with another big academic union, the Association of University Teachers.

However, Professor Grant and others fear the new University and College Union will be "contaminated from the outset".

Concern, particularly in the US, about anti-Israeli activism among British academics was triggered last year after the AUT voted for a boycott of two institutions in Israel, one of which was accused of illegal construction on Palestinian land.

Campaigners this week said that it was inconceivable the issue would not re-emerge and be voted on at UCU.

Professor Steven Rose, a distinguished neurobiologist at the Open University and a leading light in the boycott campaign, said Mr Summers's remarks were "grotesque".

"There is nothing anti-Semitic about putting pressure on Israeli institutors and their academic staff to fight against the illegal and anti-human-rights policies of the Israeli state.

"When Israeli academic institutions and staff protest for the academic freedom of their academic colleagues in Palestine then I will feel more sympathetic to them."

Our links relevent to this article

More About Zionism and Israel

Copying - Please do copy these pages, and especially these links to your Web site,  giving credit to Zionism on the Web  www.zionismontheweb.org