On a cold and wet Thursday evening, supporters of an academic boycott of Israel suffered a massive setback when students at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE) overwhelmingly rejected the motion “This house believes in an academic boycott of Israel.” Over 350 people, the majority of whom were academics and students, listened attentively to Dr. John Chalcraft speaking to the motion and Prof. Daniel Hochhauser speaking against the motion.
The debate, which was the first of its kind to be held for several years, was arranged jointly by the LSE Israel and Palestine student societies, proved that dialogue and building bridges between the two sides trumps boycotts every time. Unlike, last month when the LSE Palestine society talk by Abdel Bari Atwan quickly degenerated into an extremely hostile atmosphere for Jewish and Israeli students, the event this time went smoothly and without interruption.
Dr Chalcraft’s, main argument was that Israel’s Universities should be boycotted because they were complicit in the supporting the occupation and had failed to condemn their government’s actions. He argued that the boycott was directed the institutions and not Israeli academics. British academics, he said, should be encouraged to support the boycott by breaking professional links which included refusing research collaborations with Israeli universities or to referee papers or grant applications from those institutions. In order to sound reasonable, Chalcraft, who is treasurer of Bricup (British committee for universities in Palestine) a pro-boycott organisation, made his argument using universally appealing language regarding international law, human rights, and universal justice. What he failed to tell the audience was that promoting an academic boycott of Israel was against the law as it could run the serious risk of infringing UK discrimination legislation. Prof. Hochhauser completely demolished all of his opponent’s arguments and claimed that the boycott was hypocritical, as there were no such calls to boycott Harvard, Yale or the LSE over the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. Nor was it, he said, the role of academic institutions to have political views and oppose government actions. He concluded that Israeli universities and Israeli academics were being held to a much higher standard than the rest of the world.
What made this event different was that rather than having to listen to rhetoric from a member of the hard Left about the need to boycott the Zionists and their apartheid state, this was a proper debate between two distinguished academics discussing the issues. Prof. Hochauser’s medical background and knowledge of the medical advances made by Israeli Universities gave him a definite advantage over his opponent. He did however find it difficult to square his opponent’s support for an academic boycott whilst at the same time being a member of the management group for the LSE Middle East Centre which works to develop a better understanding in the region which includes all the Arab states plus Iran, Israel, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Centre’s aim is to ‘strengthen relations between LSE and Middle Eastern universities.’ Hochauser’s message throughout the debate was that a boycott will polarize, antagonize, reduce understanding, and increase hatred between Israelis and Palestinians and the way forward can only be through dialogue and cooperation.
We were told that contrary to what many people believe there is no evidence that an academic boycott of South Africa had any impact even though Chalcraft, insisted was that Israel is an apartheid state and that an academic boycott of South African Universities was crucial in bringing an end to apartheid. We also learnt that because violence, war, dialogue and diplomacy had failed to give the Palestinians what they wanted, they were now trying non-violent methods to achieve their aims and that boycotts were just a another tactic in their current campaign. Prof. Hochhauser was appalled that academics such as LSE professors were prepared to support a boycott which they regarded as just another tactic because boycotts attack the fundamentals of scholarship, academic freedom and the principle of universal freedoms. He declared that boycotts would never be used be against America or China because it was an inefficient tactic but a boycott was deemed to be an efficient tactic to use against Israel.
When the time came for the audience to vote on the proposal around 60% rejected the call for an academic boycott of Israel. The reality is that no matter how many times the issue is debated a British boycott of Israeli Universities and academics will never be formally instituted because it is against the law. Even if a boycott was to be instituted, British universities will be the losers in the long run because of the loss of funding they currently receive as a result of working with Israeli Universities.
