Statement By SPME Board of Directors and
Task Force on Boycotts Divestments and Sanctions
on the University of Johannesburg Faculty Senate Resolution
to Terminate Reseach Ties With Ben Gurion University

The undersigned members of the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Board of Directors and Task Force on Boycotts Divestments and Sanctions, representing nearly 55,000 academics worldwide, condemn the resolution passed by the University of Johannesburg Faculty Senate to terminate long-standing research collaboration contracts with Ben Gurion University in Israel effective April 1, 2011. The contract had given the University of Johannesburg the benefit of Israeli innovations in technology and water purification in handling South Africa’s own efforts in those areas.

We commend the 49 Faculty Senators who showed courage and commitment to academic excellence and the best ideals of scientific and humanitarian free exchange of knowledge to improve human and environmental conditions in their societies by resisting pressures to vote in favor of this resolution. In voting to terminate this contract 72 Faculty Senators, full professors of the university, succumbed to and became tools of the anti-Israel boycott campaign fully described at http://www.bdsmovement.com.

Also, we commend Ben Gurion University for remaining committed to working with faculty and students from Palestinian Universities and urge the University of Johannesburg Faculty Senate to reconsider its actions as the principle governing body of that university.

Furthermore, we encourage faculty from around the world to stand united with Ben Gurion University and its faculty to say to our colleagues at the University of Johannesburg, that if they boycott Ben Gurion University or any university, they are boycotting us as well because all academic boycotts are antithetical to fundamental principles of academic freedom.

Finally, we reaffirm our commitment to the statement below, which was signed by 41 Nobel Laureates and currently is supported by well over 3300 colleagues worldwide and growing in numbers. The list of signatories to the statement can be found at: https://spme.org/cgi-bin/facultyforum.cgi?ID=2395

Statement of Nobel Laureates on Academic BDS Actions Against Israeli Academics, Israeli Academic Institutions and Academic Centers and Institutes of Research and Training With Affiliations in Israel

Believing that academic and cultural boycotts, divestments and sanctions in the academy are:

We, the undersigned Nobel Laureates, appeal to students, faculty colleagues and university officials to defeat and denounce calls and campaigns for boycotting, divestment and sanctions against Israeli academics, academic institutions and university-based centers and institutes for training and research, affiliated with Israel.

Furthermore, we encourage students, faculty colleagues and university officials to promote and provide opportunities for civil academic discourse where parties can engage in the search for resolution to conflicts and problems rather than serve as incubators for polemics, propaganda, incitement and further misunderstanding and mistrust.

We, and many like us, have dedicated ourselves to improving the human condition by doing the often difficult and elusive work to understand complex and seemingly unsolvable phenomena. We believe that the university should serve as an open, tolerant and respectful, cooperative and collaborative community engaged in practices of resolving complex problems.

Academic Boycotts do not advance the cause of peace. In fact, academic cooperation and collaboration promote mutual understanding, respect and the betterment of the human condition.

Approved by the SPME Board of Directors April 2, 2011

SPME Board Members Signatories

SPME Officers:

Peter Haas, Case Western Reserve University, SPME President
Judith S Jacobson, Columbia University, SPME Vice President for Internal Relations
Stanley Dubinsky, Universityof South Carolina, SPME Vice President for External Relations
Leila Beckwith, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), SPME Treasurer
Ruth Contreras, SPME Secretary, Austria
Edward Beck, Walden University, SPME President Emeritus

Board Members:

Steve Albert, University of Pittsburgh
John R. Cohn, Thomas Jefferson University
Richard Cravatts, Boston University
Awi Federgruen, Columbia University
India E. Garnett, United Church of Christ
Joel Fishman, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Kenneth L. Marcus, Baruch College of the City of New York
David Menashri, Tel Aviv University
G.S. Don Morris, California Polytechnic Institute-Pomona
Donna Robinson Divine, Smith College
Tammi Rossman Benjamin, University of California-Santa Cruz
Philip Carl Salzman, McGill University
Ralf R. Schumann, Charité Berlin
Ernest Sternberg, University of Buffalo

SPME BDS Task Force Members Signatories

Roger Kornberg, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate
Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Nobel Laureate