Academic Freedom is the Issue

The last time this issue received such attention was in the 1960s, concerning the victimisation of two South African academics. British academics, normally content quietly to get on with their work, decided the behaviour of the South African government and universities was unacceptable and voted to take a collective, principled stand in calling for a boycott of South African institutions. Now the issue is being revisited concerning the appalling treatment of Palestinian academics. But this time the situation is far, far worse, as discussed in a concise, 35–page publication by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP).

The BRICUP publication is a discussion document, written by British academics in response to a call in 2004 by a broad cross-section of Palestinian institutions. These included several unions and federations of Palestinian university professors, journalists, physicians, engineers and artists as well as numerous non-governmental organisations and community groups. Their message to academics was articulated eloquently by the well-respected Palestinian scholar Omar Barghouti in a December 2004 article:

I wish to emphasize the necessity of applying an evolving, comprehensive, institutional boycott against Israel's academic, cultural, economic and political organizations. Without principled and effective support for this minimal, non-violent form of resistance to oppression, intellectuals and academics will be abandoning their moral obligation to stand up for right, for justice, for equality and for a chance to establish the primacy of universal ethical principles.⁴

The publication by BRICUP outlines in clear and unambiguous language the legal and moral arguments explaining why taking a stand against Israeli academic institutions is justified. It shows how academic freedom is under hostile attack by policies and actions of the State of Israel and by, or with the complicity of, the policies and actions of Israeli academic institutions. This is illustrated by numerous examples of institutional victimisation and the broader security regime imposed by Israel that systematically violate human rights and humanitarian law (pp.12–19) reinforcing the underlying message of boycott as 'a combination of symbolic protest, material intervention and political action' (p. 21).

Carefully measured comparisons are made with the system of racialised apartheid in South Africa. This is crucial. As mentioned earlier, there is arguably no other event in recent history that has so mobilised British academics to take such a position.

If anything could be said to be missing, it is additional detail that would further reinforce the document's central arguments justifying an academic boycott. For example, it is elsewhere documented that the rule of law in Israel is absent for so many Palestinians. This is particularly the case for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who are discriminated against by a separate legal and administrative regime that does not apply to the several hundred thousand Israeli settlers living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The settlements and 'associated regime' were confirmed as illegal by the International Court of Justice. This state of illegality has even been reinforced by the Supreme Court of Israel.⁵ Discrimination also exists in Israel itself, for Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship. While the Israeli 'law of return' allows Jews from all over the world to settle in Israel, hundreds of thousands of ethnically-cleansed Palestinians who lived in the territory for centuries, and their descendants, are denied their right to reclaim and return to their property and lands, confiscated on various occasions and notably during the war in 1948.⁶

References in this concise publication to further reading make clear that the absence of additional perspectives was merely intended to give the publication a crucial focus on the core issue, namely denial of the academic freedom of Palestinians. Unlike the knee-jerk responses of the boycott detractors, the publication shows that much reflection has taken place. The document comprehensively deals with various 'claims' that have been made against calling for a boycott and seeks, as the authors argue, to 'disentangle fact from myth and innuendo' (pp. 24–31). The authors make clear that the focus of...