David Newman is a professor of political geography at Ben-Gurion University
of the Negev in Israel, and is currently editor of the journal Geopolitics.
He is now on sabbatical as a visiting scholar in Great Britain, and the Uk
representative of the IAB (International Advisory Board) on Academic
Freedom..

I am sitting in a conference room, observing a group of 36 participants in
a discussion. It is intense, and one can see the care with which the
speakers choose their words. For this is no normal gathering. It involves
two groups of teachers–one Israeli and the other Palestinian–who, meeting
each other for the first time, are not normally prepared to recognize even
the basic legitimacy of each other’s claims.

We are in the neutral city of Istanbul during the first days of the
Lebanon war. It took months of preparation to get the logistics right[–]to
enable the Palestinian participants from the West Bank who did not have the
permits to travel through Israel to leave via Jordan, for instance, and to
arrange for kosher food for the religious Israeli participants. Then, right
before they were all due to depart, hostilities broke out in southern
Lebanon, Hezbollah fired the first Katyusha rockets into Haifa, and it
looked as though all those preparations would count for nothing. But, with
one exception, every participant has arrived.

The sort of dialogue that occurred in this meeting[–]which took place
in July 2006[–]is a fundamental reason why a British faculty union’s
decision last week to abandon a proposed academic boycott of Israeli
universities is such a fortunate turn of events. In the false name of
liberalism, human rights, and academic freedom, the boycott would have
destroyed all the progress toward mutual understanding that this and other
programs like it have brought about, further alienating Israelis and
Palestinians from each other.

The two groups that met in the conference room in Istanbul had worked
separately for a year as part of a project supported by the European Union
Partnership for Peace Programme. The teacher participants on the Israeli
side had attended weekly meetings at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to
learn about the Middle East, Islam, and conflict resolution. They also took
field trips to Arab and Bedouin settlements, places they had never
previously visited despite living nearby.

They were initially suspicious of participating in such a program at a
university that was known for its liberal pro-peace faculty members or a
program that was supported by the European Union, due to its perceived
pro-Palestinian bias. They made it clear that they had come only to learn
about the “other,” not to have their political opinions changed[–]a
statement they reasserted at every possible opportunity throughout the year.
But they finally admitted that their understanding of the “other”
changed. They recognized that violence and victimization had occurred on
both sides of the conflict. Some of the braver ones even invited teachers
from the other group to come to their schools and speak to their students.
Now in its third year, the project is just one example of many
collaborative Israeli-Palestinian programs being carried out at Israeli
universities. Some programs focus on pure research, especially in the fields
of medicine, biotechnology, and water research. Others work to educate the
two sides about one another, to encourage dialogue and education about the
social, cultural, and religious norms of people who have been perceived only
as enemies.

Last spring, however, the union that represents 120,000 British
academics, the University and College Union, voted to consider a boycott of
Israeli academics as a way to condemn “the complicity of Israeli academia in
the occupation” of Palestinian lands.The relatively small group of political
activists who championed the boycott saw only one side to the conflict. To
them, Israel was the sole perpetrator of injustice[–]the only country where
the denial of human rights, accompanied by violence and insecurity,
persists. The boycott became a crusade to single out Israel and its
academics as the lepers of world society. The boycotters live in denial of
China, Burma, Zimbabwe, and a host of other countries with which Britain has
academic and scientific links.

The fact that open debate, academic freedom, and criticism of the state
are daily occurrences at Israeli universities was simply ignored. Yet if
there is a liberal space within Israel where the two sides can meet and
cooperate, even in these most difficult times, it is within institutions of
higher education. More often than not, Israeli academics are among the first
to sign petitions and raise a cry when the rights of Palestinians are
jeopardized[–]not only the rights of Palestinian academics for academic
freedom and free speech, but the rights of all those who are subject to
Israel’s problematic occupation of the West Bank. Despite the continuing
conflict, people speak out critically of the government and its
policies[–]even about issues of state security.

When this latest boycott (the third attempt in as many years) was
proposed, it was, of course, all too easy for those who are Israeli or
Jewish to respond to pro-boycott union members with counter accusations of
anti-Semitism. But the anti-Semitism counter argument was too simplistic;
not everyone associated with the pro-boycott campaign was anti-Semitic. Some
of them are liberal academics who will stand up and defend the rights of any
student or professor who believes that his or her rights have been infringed
because of their religious or ethnic affiliations[–]be they Jewish, Muslim,
Hindu or anything else.

At the same time, however, those involved in the potential boycott must
recognize the growing anti-Semitism that has visited England and its
universities in recent years, which they, even if unwittingly, have
encouraged. A recent All-Party Parliamentary report on anti-Semitism[ (the
authors of which did not include a single Jewish member of Parliament so as
not to be accused of bias) increasing incidents of anti-Semitic behavior at
British universities.

For my part, when I, an Israeli professor, lecture at seminars and
workshops in Britain, I am made to feel at home amongst my peers. But I am
always approached afterward by Jewish students[–]rational, intelligent,
non-hysterical young adults[–]who tell me how uncomfortable university life
is becoming for them, especially if they display outward signs of their
Jewishness or take part in events organized by the local Jewish or Israeli
societies.

At first, I thought they were slightly paranoid, overreacting to a
difficult political atmosphere that is highly critical of Israel. But now
that group after group has approached me during the past few years, I can no
longer deny that a definite change has occurred on campuses[–]a change
that, in many ways, is a result of the singling out of Israel by some of my
academic peers.

The proposed boycott faced formidable opposition. The heads of British
universities as well as many of the union members[–]who were annoyed that
their representatives spend their time vilifying Israel instead of dealing
with their pensions, wages, and other employment conditions[–]came out
strongly against any notion of a boycott. So did the news media, not always
known for its support of Israel’s positions, and so did the British
government, with clear statements by former prime minister Tony Blair, the
conservative leader David Cameron, and the higher-education minister, Bill
Rammell. In the end, the union abandoned the proposed boycott because,
according to it lawyers, such an action would breach antidiscrimination
laws[–]not, unfortunately, because they recognized the basic immorality and
ethnic selection that was an integral part of the boycott attempt.

Yet the fact that the boycott did not occur does not alter the fact
that, at the end of the day, the union has been instrumental in creating an
image of British universities around the world that is not sympathetic. In
North America and much of Europe, they are often now perceived as places
that deny academic freedom and liberal discourse.

My own experience, both as a student 30 years ago and as a visiting
scholar today, is that British universities remain places for open debate
and freedom of expression. But the attempt to boycott a specific group of
scholars and deny them basic rights, even if it is led by a small,
vociferous minority, has damaged the global reputation of those fine
universities, threatening their very integrity as places of balance and
neutrality.

Even if that image softens with the abandonment of the boycott, much
more remains at stake. Those who promoted the idea of a boycott should take
a harder look at programs like the one sponsored by the EU Partnership for
Peace. How many of the pro-boycott activists have actively engaged in the
sort of research or dialogue that actually benefits the two peoples or the
wider Middle East? If they want to contribute to peace, cooperation, and
reconciliation in the Middle East, that is the approach they should take.

They can start by taking part in collaborative research and conferences
with both their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts. They can visit the
region and its universities, on both sides of the divide, to have a closer,
and more balanced, understanding of the contested national narratives. And
they can provide welcoming neutral spaces of open dialogue where both
Israeli and Palestinian scholars can come together and pursue research for
which universities exist in the first place[–]the enhancement of
scholarship and the welfare of humankind.