A win for academic boycott
JVL Introduction
Banning boycotts, and condemning those who support them, is a major preoccupation of pro-Israel lobbyists. This is especially true in the US and especially in academia, where the campaign initiated in 2004 by PACBI (Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) is frequently denounced as opposed to academic freedom and of course, along with the whole BDS movement, as being antisemitic.
It is therefore highly significant that the American Association of University Professors has issued a statement acknowledging that boycotts “can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education.”
The article below, published by Ha’aretz on August 12, is thin on detail about what the Palestinian academic boycott entails. For more information see the website of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP). It urges academics:
to support the Academic Commitment in response to the request by Palestinian civil society organisations to refrain from any involvement with Israeli academic institutions, all of which are complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonisation and system of apartheid.
NWI
This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Mon 12 Aug 2024. Read the original here.
Major U.S. Academic Union Withdraws Opposition to Boycotting Israeli Universities
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I just want to add another cheer for my old university of York. The York Palestine solidarity encampment has already won three scholarships for Gazans to start this coming term, and the university had already divested from all armsntrade investments two years ago. There’s still along way to go, but no students have been arrested; four came to stay here in London for the last big march and I know they are not going to stop .