tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19797431.post3294537303988963230..comments2023-05-09T07:03:42.262-04:00Comments on BingoProf's Blog: BDS and One Confused JewBingoProfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14962803448343359605noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19797431.post-53177270713790332222014-02-09T17:40:57.765-05:002014-02-09T17:40:57.765-05:00I do not know how institutes of higher education (...I do not know how institutes of higher education (other than recently authorized Ariel University [I call it "Settler U"]) are complicit in the policies you are opposing. For example, all 5 university presidents opposed the governmental recognition of Ariel University. <br />If you claim Israeli universities make the occupation easier by forgiving absences of Israeli reservist students: nothing done for reservist students by way of special treatment is different that the policies in place in many American colleges and universities for reservists. <br />If you argue that some Israeli professors serve as reserve officers in the Israeli army, and that Israeli institutional research contributes to the aims of the Israeli occupation - you are asking of Israel something you have never asked from the United States, which has reservists in its academic ranks, and whose institutes contribute daily to military research. <br />If you rightly point out that the campus of Tel Aviv University is built on the ruins of the Palestinian village al-Shaykh Muwwanis - it was on a site that the UN partition plan had allocated to the Jewish state. Are you advocating Israel abandon Tel Aviv? If you claim that Mt. Scopus campus in east Jerusalem is built on Palestinian land - it was purchased before World War I from its British owner. In 1947 it was allotted to the Jews in the Jerusalem international zone.<br />Israeli academics as a group are far more likely to engage in formal and informal contacts with their Palestinian counterparts. The president of al-Quds University - recently boycotted by Brandeis for a short time - is on record against this boycott. HAMAS today endorsed it though. Nice company...BingoProfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14962803448343359605noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19797431.post-51989478969701688542014-02-07T10:35:17.613-05:002014-02-07T10:35:17.613-05:00As another confused Jew, I differ on only a couple...As another confused Jew, I differ on only a couple of points from you. First, because I agree with you about Israel being on a crash course with destruction at the moment, I would argue that such a view might be held strongly enough to prompt a boycott of Israel altogether. Different people might differ, according to the vehemence of their feeling. So, for example, I boycott firms that employ child labor or have otherwise immoral policies or standards (which cuts out most clothes buying, by the way). Apartheid South Africa rose to that standard. Israel might or might not (as might Syria, Sudan, wherever). One might support such a boycott without embracing the BDS views you rightly disparage.<br />Second, if one does endorse such a boycott, there is no reason to exclude any institutions supported by the government, especially when they are themselves complicit in the policies one is opposing. That is not to target individual scholars or performers (I appreciate this is a fine distinction) but a recognition that universities may be (and in Israel's case often are)immeshed in the same problematic attitudes and behaviors. The unbalanced and unfair treatment of Palestinian schools and sometimes scholars also adds to the argument.<br />Finally, I would add one more justification for action in this case (rather than, say, endorsing a boycott of China for its equally troubling academic and political policies). Israel and its Jewish supporters have consistently called on me, as a Jew, to support Israel as "my" nation, my protection, my self-interest. If so, then I have more of both a duty and a right to act and speak out on issues relating to Israel than I do with other nations. That doesn't speak in favor of a boycott, but rather a defense of doing something active regarding Israel in what is often termed an "unbalanced" way. That's not to say other (non-Jewish) people might be hypocritical or unbalanced in focusing only on Israel. I don't know. But in my case, as a Jew, I don't think it's a fair criticism. <br />The American civil rights movement largely backed off of its more class-based agendas for fear of seeming to ally too closely with the communists, who were also active on behalf of civil rights. I think that was a mistake. Just because the communists advocated something didn't make that thing wrong. So too with the boycott. One can reasonably support a boycott without endorsing the views of BDS, and to refrain from action solely for fear of seeming to be a BDS supporter is not, I would argue, morally justifiable.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18021793510649494800noreply@blogger.com