Academia in Israel practices racism just as the rest of the country does:
Questioning the Israeli Boycott
I would like to respond to Neve Gordon's piece,
"Against the Israeli Academic Boycott" (Feb. 14).
Like Gordon, I am opposed to an academic
boycott of Israeli universities precisely because it singles out academia. Unlike
Gordon, however, I don't see any valid justification to exclude universities and
research institutes from a general boycott of Israeli goods and services.
The driving force behind the rapidly developing boycott movement is the
frustration that many people in the West feel about the almost total indifference
of their governments to the ongoing Israeli war against the Palestinians, and
about the unperturbed legitimacy that Israel continues to enjoy in Western
political circles. Since governments are not willing to stand up and put pressure
on Israel, a variety of independent, grassroots initiatives have sprung up. They
share the aim of delegitimizing Israel and its official institutions, penalizing it
economically and isolating it politically.
I recently received an invitation to speak at a scientific conference at Ben
Gurion University (BGU). I declined the invitation on two grounds. The first
was that I practice the boycott and as such I do not buy Israeli avocados and
beauty products or participate in events organized by an Israeli academic
institution. My second reason for declining the invitation was that I know
perfectly well that if the situation were reversed--that is, if I, my family or my
people were being trampled by Palestinian guns, barely surviving under
curfew, prevented from attending school or going to work, isolated
internationally and clamoring for support and solidarity--I would feel a surge of
resentment toward any foreign academic traveling to, say, Bir Zeit University
as a guest of a scientific conference. Talk about the "apolitical" nature of such a
conference would strike me as a lame excuse for indifference.
Gordon advances two arguments in favor of leaving the universities out of the
boycott. First, he argues that the boycott harms academic freedom and serves
those who would like to stifle it. Second, he claims that Israeli universities are
bastions of freedom and therefore constitute the wrong targets.
To take up the second point first, it seems to me fairly well established that
only Jews enjoy real freedom in Israel, and only Jewish students and faculty
are really free in Israel's universities. Arab students are subject both to
institutional discrimination and to the more or less usual racism which
permeates Israeli society. The former includes the near absence of financial
aid, the absence of Hebrew-language assistance (which is provided to Jewish
immigrants), no housing assistance and no official recognition of Arab student
bodies. Finally, Arabs' liberties of expression and congregation are substanially
more restricted than those accorded to Jews or Jewish bodies.
When I taught at Haifa University in the late 1980s, I was appalled by the
existence of a two-tier grade system, with different standards for Jews and
Arabs. I distinctly recall my department chair pressuring me (I was untenured)
to give a B+ to a Palestinian student, explaining that while she agreed that the
student's work was not worth the paper it was written on, "she is only an Arab
girl who wants to be a teacher."
I also remember many discussions with my Arab students about the
dehumanization they were subjected to ("dehumanization" was their term).
They pointed out to me that the overwhelming majority of Jewish professors
had no interest in their origins (e.g., from the North or the South of the
country, from a village or a town), that they were simply "Arabs." Jewish
students, on the other hand, were not simply "Jews." They were religious or
secular, Ashkenazi or Sephardic; from a city, a kibbutz or a moshav; Russian
or native-born, etc. The Arab students found particulay insulting the fact that
many professors made no efforts to learn their names or were unable to
distinguish last names from first names.
It is quite revealing, I think, that the voice of Arab academics employed by
Israeli institutions is completely absent from the debate over the academic
boycott. Let me venture the hypothesis that many Arabs in Israeli universities
are afraid to take a public position on this issue, since they know they will be
putting their jobs at risk. If this hypothesis is valid, or even partially valid, than
all the talk about freedom in Israeli universities is just propaganda.
Consider, finally, the argument to the effect that a boycott of Israeli academic
institutions harms academic freedom and provides grist for the mill of the
Limor Livnats of the world (Livnat is Minister of Education). Let us agree on
one thing: In a boycott situation, there is a price to be paid. For example,
agricultural workers in Israel risk losing their jobs as a consequence of a drop
in sales of Israeli agricultural goods. Academics also pay a price, but it is,
frankly, a very low price because, crucially, their salaries are not at risk. What
is at risk are invitations to foreign conferences, research funding, etc. These
undeniably limit some academic activities, but can they be considered
limitations of academic freedom? I cannot see how a boycott prevents an
Israeli researcher from, for example, publishing his or her research through the
myriad channels available today, namely the Internet, domestic Israeli
publications, through teaching, seminars, colloquia etc. Does one have to be a
professor with frequent invitations to lecture in the United States in order to be
free?
Finally, efforts to stifle dissident voices in Israel are likely to increase as the
country becomes more and more isolated internationally. Being in favor of the
boycott, however, does not mean that we sit back while Haifa University tries
to fire a professor because he stood up for a student who revealed another
1948 massacre (I am referring here to charges that were brought and later
dismissed against Professor Ilan Pappé). On the contrary, the movement will
only get stronger if it combines institutional boycott with support for individual
scholars--particularly those who, like Neve Gordon, have the courage to
dissent.
UR SHLONSKY
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