I was not a member of Natfhe. As an AUT member, and as a patron of the UK Council for Academic Freedom, I opposed the boycott initiative on grounds of basic principle. It is clear to me – both from previous AUT boycott debates and from the recent disgraceful motion passed by the AUT in its final hours against the Leeds academic Dr Frank Ellis (whose views on multiculturalism and intelligence have annoyed the AUT’s Leeds branch) – that there is a lamentable ignorance in the British academy of what academic freedom actually is.
Academic freedom means nothing if it does not mean that academics have the right to hold and to publicly express the most unpopular of views, without the slightest fear of institutional reprisal. All academics everywhere have the right to engage in and with academic discourse without first having to undergo some political test or rite of passage.
It is for these reasons that I have publicly defended Dr Ilan Pappé, the revisionist historian at Haifa University. I defend his right to hold and to disseminate his deeply flawed and essentially stupid views on the re-establishment of the Jewish state. Of course, I expect Pappé to defend my right to take issue with his views (and I have no reason to suppose that he would not do so). I also expect the broad fellowship of academics around the world to defend his rights of academic expression, should the need arise, and, should the need arise, to defend mine.
Academic freedom is more or less absolute.
But what the proponents of the boycott of Israelis want is to cynically sacrifice that freedom on the altar of their own particular political prejudices. In this case, these prejudices relate – in the words of the article – to “the complicity of the Israeli academy with the occupation and discrimination in Israeli universities”.
I do not intend – here – to launch into any substantial examination of the truth behind these prejudices, except to remind the authors that Israel is at war. War has a habit of compromising what are referred to nowadays as human rights. During the second world war, basic freedoms, such as the right not to be imprisoned without trial, were severely curtailed in the UK. There was comprehensive censorship of public media. Not one British university protested against these restrictions.
As a matter of fact, Israeli universities are extraordinarily cosmopolitan academies, and I marvel at the patience and essential liberalism of Israeli society in permitting them virtually unfettered freedoms of the sort that academics in Islamic societies can only dream about dreaming about.
But that is not and never was the point. Insofar as my love of academic freedom is concerned, it matters not whether the Israeli academy is or is not “complicit”. What the Natfhe motion sought and perhaps still seeks to do is to impose a political test, and to compel through this political test the espousal and expression of certain political views. How disgraceful.
I regret the crudity and racism that clearly informed some of the emails received by Natfhe’s general secretary, Paul Mackney. If it is any consolation to him, I am also privileged to receive emails and (usually anonymous) letters that express not dissimilar racist and xenophobic sentiments.
But the mainstream anti-boycott organisations were absolutely justified in running their campaigns. The boycotters have no interest at all in academic freedom, which they do not care about or even understand. They condemn Israeli academics but are happy to turn a blind eye to the smothering of academic freedom in many other countries. They fully deserve the electronic pressure to which the anti-boycott groups exposed them.
· Professor Geoffrey Alderman is senior vice-president of American InterContinental University, London. He writes in a personal capacity