Report on a meeting about the scientific and cultural boycott of Israel held in Paris, France

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Exclusive to SPME Faculty Forum

A meeting on the scientific and cultural boycott of Israel was held on Saturday 25th of September in Paris. It was entitled “Débat européen sur le boycott scientifique et culturel des institutions israéliennes” (European Debat on scientific and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions) and was organised by a French association called “Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit Internation en Palestine” (Association of scholars for the respect of international law in Palestine) and a British association called the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine. Although it was announced as a debate, all of the speakers were anti-Zionist activists and no opponents were invited. It was initially supposed to happen at the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS), which is the most prestigious academic institution in France. Members of the French SPME list wrote messages to the ENS. The location of the meeting suddenly changed two days before the meeting. It was eventually held at the INHA (Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art), which is a research center with much less prestige. On Saturday evening, the entry of the INHA was heavily guarded by a group of men from an organisation called the “Jeunes Musulmans de France” (Young Muslims of France). Around 110 people attended the conference. The speakers were a Palestinian representative of the BDS campaign, the Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan who is famous for his anti-Israel views, a British scholar called Robert Boyce, a British artist called John Berger and two French scholars. The first French scholar was Christophe Oberlin, a Medical Professor who travels to Gaza regularly and headed the Europalestine list during the 2004 European elections. This list was ferociously anti-Zionist and some of its members were later sentenced for inciting anti-Semitism. The second French scholar is Ivar Ekeland who is a former Dean of a Parisian University (Paris-Dauphine). He is also the founder of the AURDIP (Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine) that organised the meeting. Speakers gave examples of how one could use one’s appointment in an academic committee to implement the boycott by changing the rules and regulations in such a way that excludes Israel without explicitly saying so. There were also strange comments that seemed to spring from the imagination of a speaker, such as the fact that research at the Technion could eventually lead to creating invisible microscopic drones that would enter Palestinian homes. The last part of the evening was devoted to questions and comments by the audience. Some dealt with the so powerful “Zionist lobby”, with the usual accusations of Jewish representatives being Mossad agents. Interestingly, these comments triggered irritated reactions from the Israeli filmmaker, although he was otherwise a very strong supporter of the Palestinian cause. No other speaker responded in a way that would show they disapproved these types of comments. The week following this conference, there was a short report posted on the web site of the AURDIP. It stated that meetings were held on the 25th and 26th of September to coordinate the cultural and scientific boycott of Israel on a European scale with around 50 scholars from around 10 different countries. It is hard to evaluate the importance of these meetings, but it seems that there is an effort to synchronize the actions of the “anti-Zionist lobby” across Europe. Nevertheless, these events went unnoticed in the media.

Report on a meeting about the scientific and cultural boycott of Israel held in Paris, France

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