This past week (November 4, 2006), the AAUP issued the following statement regarding an Israeli army ban on Palestinian students from studying at Israeli universities:

“The AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure notes with great concern the recent action of the Israeli army to ban Palestinian students from Israeli universities for security reasons, except for the small number of Palestinian students who were given permission to attend Israeli universities before 2002. Categorical proscriptions on the basis of nationality as well as other educationally irrelevant and invidious grounds, wherever applied, wrongly limit educational opportunity, impair the freedom to search for truth, and damage international as well as communal understanding. In this instance, by impairing the right of Israeli faculty members and their universities to decide whom to admit to study, the ban also affronts academic freedom. According to the Rectors of the Israeli universities made subject to the ban, it cannot reasonably be justified on the legitimate grounds of security. We join the Rectors and the Heads of Palestinian Universities in calling upon the Israeli army to lift the general ban and concur with the Rectors that any prohibition based on security concerns should be decided solely on a case by case basis.”

On this issue, the AAUP followed the lead of Bar-Ilan University’s International Advisory Board (IAB) for Academic Freedom and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), which issued calls (in October 2006) for an Israeli government review of the case of Ms. Sawsan Salameh, a Palestinian student from the West Bank, who received a scholarship to pursue doctoral studies at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem but who was denied a travel permit on the basis of a blanket security policy that prohibits (most) Palestinian students from studying in Israeli universities.

We see the language of the AAUP statement as a positive step in regard to this, and similar issues. In this regard, we remind all those who support both the AAUP’s statement (above) and the cause of Palestinian students in Israel to recognize that these very same principles undermine the positions of those who have sought to impose boycotts and bans on Israeli academics, artists, scholars, researchers, and universities. To the Steve and Hilary Roses, the Mona Bakers, the Sue Blackwells, and all the other hypocritical supporters of anti-Israeli academic boycotts, we thank the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure when we say:

“[SPME] notes with great concern the recent [efforts on the part of various groups of university scholars and researchers] to ban [contact with (i.e. boycott)] Israeli universities [and scholars] for [political] reasons, except for the small number of [Israeli scholars] who [are deemed to have passed some political litmus test]. Categorical proscriptions on the basis of nationality as well as other educationally irrelevant and invidious grounds, wherever applied, wrongly limit educational opportunity, impair the freedom to search for truth, and damage international as well as communal understanding. In [every] instance, by impairing the right of Israeli faculty members and their universities to [collaborate and conduct research], [these movements] also affront academic freedom. According to the… Israeli universities [and scholars] made subject to the [boycott efforts], [they] cannot reasonably be justified on the legitimate grounds of [bringing peace and] security [to the Palestinian population]. We join the [supporters of academic freedom around the world] in calling upon the [organizers of such boycotts] to [cease and desist from these cynical and immoral campaigns].”