Earlier this week, a bill was hastily removed from the agenda of the New York State Assembly. The bill was designed as a response to the American Studies Association’s decision to boycott Israeli educational institutions. But it was so poorly written that even opponents of the ASA boycott saw it as potentially [...]]]>
Earlier this week, a bill was hastily removed from the agenda of the New York State Assembly. The bill was designed as a response to the American Studies Association’s decision to boycott Israeli educational institutions. But it was so poorly written that even opponents of the ASA boycott saw it as potentially damaging to academic freedom in general. The bill was removed from the fast track in New York so it could be re-written to be more acceptable to its potential supporters. A similar bill is currently working its way through the Maryland state legislature.
Now the US Congress is getting into the act, with a bill that has the same goal, but takes a different approach. The bills in New York and Maryland did not specifically mention Israel, although it was clear that the ASA action against Israeli academia is what prompted the bills. Instead, they tried to argue that academic freedom meant that the state must penalize institutions that choose to express themselves through the power of boycott if the target is a country that has extensive academic connections with the United States.
Even Jewish groups supported the withdrawal of the New York bill, and many people agreed that, however onerous they thought the ASA action was, this sort of legislation was contrary to academic freedom and to freedom of expression.
The bill introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) relates only to academic boycotts against Israel. Where the state bills proscribed penalties, including a reduction of funding against any institution that participated in an association that called for a boycott and even prohibited reimbursing faculty for travel expenses to attend conferences by such groups, the congressional one threatens to cut off all funding under the Higher Education Act to any university “…if the institution, any significant part of the institution, or any organization significantly funded by the institution adopts a policy or resolution, issues a statement, or otherwise formally establishes the restriction of discourse, cooperation, exchange, or any other involvement with academic institutions or scholars on the basis of the connection of such institutions or such scholars to the State of Israel.”
That is a very broad statement. “Significantly funding,” read broadly, can easily include not only institutional support of academic associations like ASA, but also student groups, fraternities/sororities and research collectives. So, this is very far from affecting only universities.
This goes well beyond boycotts. It bars any group attached in any way to a university or group of universities from any material reaction, beyond voicing criticism, to Israel’s policies. Nor does it make any distinction between Israel and the settlements. That means that no institution of higher education can object in any material way to an association or connection to Ariel University, a fully accredited Israeli university located in the settlement of Ariel. That institution is highly controversial within Israel, and its very establishment contravenes US policy, yet a student group which is funded by a university would risk the university’s federal funding, all of it, if they refuse to work with that school.
Moreover, the fact that Roskam’s bill is specific to Israel is particularly noxious, and should be a matter of deep concern for anyone who supports Israel or who is concerned about anti-Semitism, as well as to those of us who support Palestinian rights and the right of American citizens to free expression. The bill creates a unique category of protection for Israel, based on Roskam’s wholly unfounded assertion that the ASA boycott decision is an “anti-Semitic effort.”
I, myself, do not agree with academic boycotts of Israel as a whole (boycotts targeting Ariel University and any other settlement program have my full support). That is a matter of tactics, however. My disagreement is based entirely on my view that an academic boycott of all of Israel is counter-productive at this time. But there is no reasonable basis for contending that a boycott against a country that has held millions of Palestinians under a military occupation depriving them of their civil rights and routinely violating their human rights is motivated by anything other than the policies of the occupying power.
By singling out Israel for this “protection,” the Roskam bill, not the ASA, is treating Israel as a special case rather than a country like any other, which must contend with material as well as rhetorical opposition to its policies. Basing it on Israel being a “Jewish state” serves not only to undermine the Jewish effort to be accepted like any other people, but actually promotes resentment and hostility toward Jews.
Roskam’s bill is blatantly unconstitutional, as are the various bills in the state legislatures, although the state versions are slightly less onerous and blatant in their disregard of the Constitution. Boycotts are legal and legitimate expressions protected under the First Amendment. The argument will be made that the state does not have to fund such activities, which is true, but there is a big difference between not funding legitimate free expression and state interference with it. As one constitutional lawyer, Floyd Abrams, told BuzzFeed: “The notion that the power to fund colleges and their faculties may be transformed into a tool to punish them for engaging in constitutionally protected expression is contrary to any notion of academic freedom and to core First Amendment principles. I believe that academic boycotts are themselves contrary to principles of academic freedom but that does not make the legislation being considered any more tolerable or constitutional.”
The bill is probably not going to be successful in Congress. The efforts have a much better chance in the state legislatures. Still, it was brought forth by Roskam, and his Illinois colleague Dan Lipinski, a Democrat, was an initial co-sponsor, so the bill is ostensibly bi-partisan. It also came with the support of Israel’s former Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren. So it should not be blithely dismissed despite its blatant unconstitutionality.
]]>by Yarden Katz
Every few years, a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions gains enough momentum to make a brief wave in the media, before it enters the cycle of condemnation. After making the rounds, the boycott gets predictably denounced by major organizations, followed by widespread reiteration of support for the state [...]]]>
by Yarden Katz
Every few years, a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions gains enough momentum to make a brief wave in the media, before it enters the cycle of condemnation. After making the rounds, the boycott gets predictably denounced by major organizations, followed by widespread reiteration of support for the state of Israel. It diverts the public’s attention from the main issues of justice in Palestine, stands no chance of convincing a mainstream audience, and sets the stage for right-wing opponents. Still, a minority of academics dutifully roll their boycott stone up the endless hill of opposition again, only to see it rolled back down again. And roll down it should, because the current ASA-supported academic boycott of Israeli universities is, in my view, unprincipled, ineffective, and hypocritical.
The usual cycle of condemnation has been seen in the backlash to the recent American Studies Association (ASA) appeal, which called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The relatively small list of individuals who signed the petition was overshadowed by official condemnations of the move by Harvard and Yale and the cancellation by four other universities of their membership in the group. A slew of other universities, including Yale, Princeton, Brown and NYU denounced the boycott, while the president of MIT, Rafael Reif, issued a statement that rejected it since it “fundamentally violates the principles of academic freedom” and contradicts the “longstanding practice of fostering active engagement with international academic institutions and open dialog among people from all nations.” Reif’s simple logic is correct: the boycott is entirely unprincipled if one is committed to academic freedom. Indeed, the academic boycott campaign has actually served to divert attention from the critical issue of Israeli violations of the human rights and international law to the otherwise unrelated question of academic freedom.
Moreover, the academic boycott ignores the fact that students and faculty within universities have historically served as key sources of resistance to arbitrary and abusive regimes. Although a small minority, there are Israelis within academia who organize opposition to the occupation and seek to advance justice for Palestinians. This voice of dissent should be harnessed to educate the population and influence policy, as in previous struggles, rather than boycotted and isolated.
To learn about the case for academic boycott this time, I turned to the website for the US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (USCACBI). A graphic on its front page urges a halt to the Cornell-Technion Collaboration (“STOP the Cornell-Technion collaboration in NYC – NO to war crimes + NO to Israel”).
What could be so malicious about a scientific collaboration between two academic institutions offering a joint academic curriculum? The Cornell-Technion website states that the collaboration’s goal is to “create better health care information systems, mobile health care applications, and medical devices,” and that the joint venture “aims to increase the efficiency and sustainability of urban environments at all scales.” It will also provide a Masters of Science program for students. Could this be a misleading veil? Is this academic alliance secretly a destructive effort to further deny the rights of Palestinians? The hyperbolic languageon the campaign’s website is so far- fetched that it invites easy dismissal by its opponents. Extraordinary claims require real evidence, and the campaign fails to provide any substantiating the notion that this collaboration is anything but ordinary, similar to other collaborations between U.S. universities and universities throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. It’s transparent that the Cornell-Technion collaboration was not singled out for its substance, but rather for being a well-funded and visible collaboration. But that hardly justifies the hyperbole displayed on the site.
Meanwhile, important actual developments take place in the world. With the advent of peace talks, Netanyahu is planning to continue building settlements that further encroach on Palestinian territory and rights and are totally illegal under international law. The international community is overwhelmingly against the settlements, and Israel’s strongest ally, the United States (or a unified European coalition) has the power to end them with real economic pressure. It is straightforward to make a mainstream case for why settlements are illegal, why they infringe on the rights of Palestinians, and why they actively undermine hopes for any eventual peace settlement of the conflict. Critical matters like these are effectively sidetracked by the brouhaha over the academic boycott and by the long line of Israel advocates who are eager to take advantage of the opportunity to express their unconditional support for its government. In that respect, the academic boycott is not only ineffective, but also counter-productive.
Moreover, opponents of the academic boycott will rightly point out the hypocrisy of academics who sign it. A recent book by historian Craig Steven Wilder documented the ways in which major U.S. universities — including the Ivy League Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown universities — benefitted from the slave trade. More recently, institutions like MIT have contributed to weapons development and the planning of unjust wars, while benefitting handsomely from Pentagon and other government contracts. In one way or another, virtually all major American universities have contributed to or benefitted from injustices committed by their government. Thus, the appeal to punish one set of significantly younger, less influential institutions (like Israeli universities) can easily be depicted as hypocritical by its foes — especially when the call is made by those currently employed by major U.S. universities with richly tainted histories. These common-sense arguments against the academic boycott and its destructive effects have been made repeatedly by Noam Chomsky, among others.
Ultimately, it is economic pressure — justified by legal and human rights violations for which there is ample evidence and strong international opposition — that can help remedy the injustices in Palestine.
– Yarden Katz is a PhD student from Israel in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
In recent weeks, Israel and especially advocates for its right-wing in the United States have been scrambling to lash back at a boycott resolution passed by the American Studies Association (ASA). This was an initiative of an academic group in the United States directed at all of Israel [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
In recent weeks, Israel and especially advocates for its right-wing in the United States have been scrambling to lash back at a boycott resolution passed by the American Studies Association (ASA). This was an initiative of an academic group in the United States directed at all of Israel in support of the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. But all of this activity against the ASA has overlooked a much more important act of economic pressure against Israel — this one from Europe.
The ASA boycott has divided peace activists, some of whom support economic actions against settlements and the occupation but not against Israel as a whole. Others have been reluctant to support the ASA action because they support certain actions against Israel but not an academic boycott. While there has been a good deal of support for the ASA action from the broader BDS movement, these questions have left the ASA action more open to attack from those who oppose any sort of action that might compel Israel to change its policies.
And such groups have moved swiftly. Many universities have disavowed the ASA action, a few even going so far as to withdraw from membership in the association. The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations has led a charge among well-heeled Jewish groups to push for further actions against the ASA, with some gearing up to file a legal challenge to the ASA’s tax-exempt status (a challenge that would certainly fail, but is the sort of tactic a small academic association is threatened by just because of the cost of defending themselves).
All of this commotion has occurred over a resolution that will have very little material impact in and of itself on Israel. American Studies programs are not among the leading ones that interact with Israeli academic institutions to begin with. The boycott does not stop individual academics from working together, either from the US or Israel; it merely prohibits interaction with academics acting not as scholars but as “ambassadors of their institutions”.
It is of symbolic significance, to be sure. The ASA resolution opens the door for other academic boycotts, and if these should ever extend into physical science research or other technical fields where US-Israeli academic cooperation is financially, technologically or militarily significant (and there are many of those) it could be a much bigger deal. And, of course, it increases the general sense of isolation that is slowly but surely increasing in Israel over its policies.
But in fact, there have been significant developments with a European country that present a much more concrete and impactful problem for Israel. The Netherlands has seen a number of its companies terminate cooperation with Israeli companies over Israel’s ongoing occupation. The latest is PGGM, the largest Dutch pension management fund. PGGM made the decision to divest all its funds from Israel’s five largest banks because all of them are involved in some way in the settlements. The amount of money is not huge, estimated at several tens of millions of euros, but Israel is concerned that other financial institutions may follow suit and that, despite its official stance, the Netherlands government is creating an atmosphere which encourages boycotts and divestment from Israel.
There’s reason to believe that such an atmosphere exists and is growing in the Netherlands. PGGM’s decision is the latest in a series of Dutch businesses cutting ties with any Israeli venture that is connected to the settlements. Last month, a Dutch water company cut ties with Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, because of its operations in the settlements. In September, a major Dutch engineering firm canceled a contract to work on a sewage treatment plant because the project was located in East Jerusalem, beyond the Green Line (the border of Israel before it captured the West Bank in 1967). That cancellation was said to have been pushed for by the Netherlands’ government.
The Dutch government’s stance is that it “opposes any boycott of Israeli companies or institutions, in line with its standing policy.” Yet it has also warned companies that it might decide to enter into contracts that entail operations in or could fund the settlements to carefully examine the potential legal ramifications of such agreements.
Unlike the ASA boycott, the Dutch trend has specifically targeted the settlements, scrupulously avoiding a broad boycott of Israel, and the companies have cited their own ethical concerns rather than solidarity with Palestinian civil society as the impetus for their decisions. But these actions show the inherent complications of aiming a boycott only at the settlement and infrastructure that supports them.
PGGM’s divestment targets Israel’s five largest banks. Those banks could not, even if they wished to, do business exclusively within Israel’s 1967 borders. The connection between Israel and the settlements is much too complete for that, even if it would be legal for the banks to act in such a manner under Israeli law (it isn’t). Similarly, Mekorot is Israel’s national water company and must, therefore, operate in the West Bank. It’s just not possible to significantly target the settlements only in a way that Israel proper would not feel.
What Israel sees, therefore, in these kinds of economic actions is the very real possibility that the whole country will begin to feel the sting of global disapproval of its nearly 48-year old occupation, its settlement enterprise, its ongoing denial of Palestinian rights, and its intransigence in negotiations. A warning similar to the one the Netherlands issued to its businesses was circulated in England as well. If that trend grows, Israel has reason to fear significant economic backlash.
The Netherlands may be particularly inclined to encourage such actions, even if they don’t technically change their official policy. In Early December, just as their Prime Minister was coming to Israel for an official visit, Israel pulled the plug at the last minute on a Dutch scanner which would have allowed Palestinians from Gaza to export a great deal more goods through the Kerem Shalom crossing than they currently do. The scanner would have detected any illicit material in the exports, and Israel agrees it would work. But just before it was to be installed, Israel balked because the Netherlands insisted that it be used to increase exports from Gaza.
This sort of behavior certainly seems likely to encourage the Netherlands to clamp down harder on even the most indirect contribution to the occupation. And it may send a similar message to the rest of Europe, where Israel conducts the bulk of its trade. That is a lot more significant than a 400-member academic society boycotting Israel. But since the little academics are the ones the fanatical supporters of Israel can lash back at, that’s who is targeted.
That’s good news for those who believe that economic pressure is the only thing that will get Israel to change its stances regarding the Palestinians. We may be seeing the initial stages of that idea being put to the test.
Photo: Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte receives Israeli President Shimon Peres on September 29, 2013
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