Should We Boycott Thinking? Seriously, I Don't Know...

This morning I received an email from an Israeli acquaintance asking me to sign a petition against the UCU's recent motion to boycott Israel. British University and College Union (UCU) had passed a motion on Wednesday to promote a boycott on Israel's academics. The boycott is in response to what members argued was "an apartheid state, engaging in crimes against humanity in the occupied territories. They said the situation in the territories did not allow spectators to stand idly by." The motion was approved by a 158 to 99 vote, and called for freezing European funding for Israeli academic institutions, while condemning "Israeli academia's cooperation with the occupation." According to Ha'aretz, The motion called for freezing all EU funding for Israeli academic institutions until Israel will "comply with the United Nation's resolutions."

I am absolutely stumped as to how I feel about the boycott. On the one hand, I applaud the courage of people who stand up for what they believe in spite of the consequences. And by "consequences" I mean the deluge of anti-Semitic labels that will be plastered on all 158 offending members. But UCU is not alone. According to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, 130 British doctors called for the boycott of the Israeli Medical Association and its expulsion from the World Medical Association. The National Union of Journalists also declared a boycott of Israeli goods at their annual meeting in April in response to the Israeli "aggression" in the war with Lebanon in the summer of 2006. There is something so exciting about direct action campaigns that sometimes I'm not all that sure I care what the movement is actually about.

In this case, I DO care and so I am even more intrigued. Is this a tipping point? Is this the beginning of something? Is there an anti-Apartheid grassroots movement a-brewin' reminiscent of the 80's South African divestment campaigns? One that is of the "little less talk and a little more action" variety when it comes to solidarity with Palestinians? In the U.S., Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Tufts, University of California, and the University of Pennsylvania have announced their commitment to a divestment campaign and there are campaigns in 50 other U.S. universities trying to garner wide-spread support. This activism is clearly in spite of the big fat black mark those institutions are likely to get from pitbull, I mean, watchdog groups like Campus Watch.

This leads me to the inexplicable squicky feeling that came over me when I read the email and the subsequent news articles I found. One of the reasons the UCU boycott doesn't sit well is the fact that it specifically targets Israeli academics regardless of their affiliations or political positions. My blood boils every time I come across Campus Watch because they defame respected academics who have different ideological views and often write or teach in ways that are critical of Israel. Campus Watch's vitriolic attacks are intended to censor not only the offending scholar but any others who may share a similar perspective. So, when I read that a group of UK academics are rejecting Israeli scholarship based on their own ideological convictions, I have to wonder if priorities are well placed. The university setting is supposed to be a place of free thinking and a fertile ground for social change, so I wonder if avenues a dialogue are being road-blocked in an attempt to join a growing movement. I wonder if, instead of a boycott, a more affective tactic would have been a call for active debate between Israeli scholars and their UK counterparts.

On the other hand, if a boycott against an offending state is going to work, its gotta hurt all aspects of the state. Israeli universities are mostly state-funded and a large percentage of the Israeli population benefits from the higher education system. If students become directly affected by an institutional boycott then perhaps more grassroots Israeli dialogue and activism will develop. One would hope. Then again, critical introspection usually is the best answer for everything, yet rarely employed. I can't think of too many occasions when an offending collective spontaneously issued a mea culpa after a sharp international rebuke.

I am interested in hearing more about this debate. It will be exciting to learn about the strategies divestment organizers will use. From a U.S. perspective, it is really positive that there are some Ivy League heavy hitters on board to lend credibility to the campaign. My one hope is that it isn't all in vain. I hope there are experienced organizers at the helm of this movement because otherwise it will be yet another opportunity for the international community to let the Palestinian people down.