The International Herald Tribune is reporting (article is here) that academics in Britain have voted on Monday to approve a resolution urging its sixty-seven thousand members to boycott Israeli academics who fail to renounce what they called Israel's "apartheid policies." This is not a new idea. It's been floated many times before, although I do think this is the first time it has been officially voted on by such a large group (it has been considered, however, by pretty much every academic body in the western world).
The problem I have with this idea is not that the Israelis would be boycotted. I personally agree that a lot of their policies toward the Palestinians are not helping matters. However, I don't see why Israel should be singled out this way. Their behaviour has been reprehensible at best, but they are hardly the only country doing what they're doing. Why aren't academics boycotting the Russians for their treatment of the Chechens (also the Georgians, the Ukranians, and pretty much every ex-Soviet bloc country), or the Chinese for their treatment of the Tibetans and Falun Gong members (admittedly, those Falun Gong people are really strange)? I'm not sure what they hope to accomplish by doing this, especially at a time when Israel seems to be heading in the right direction (vis a vis pulling out of the territories). Why not try to do something that would energise the left, rather than alienate everyone?
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