Professor emeritus, Department of Economics, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel

http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/story.jsp?story=643065

Sir: Oren Ben-Dor, an academic of Israeli origin, was not happy with the AUT vote to repeal its decision to boycott two Israeli universities, and calls for an academic boycott of all Israeli universities (Opinion, 30 May). The reason: Israel curbs academic freedom by preventing a debate on the Palestinian Nakba of 1948.

These curbs exist only in Ben-Dor’s imagination. No Israeli academic, right or left, is restricted in his field of research or in reaching his own conclusions. Every Israeli university has its share of extreme left-wing academics who question accepted wisdom, without any limitations on their academic freedom.

Ben-Dor’s problem is not academic freedom, but the fact that most Israeli academics do not share with him the Palestinian narrative about 1948. They think that the Nakba was a result of the rejection of United Nation’s Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947, which called for the establishment of two states, one Jewish and one Arab. In the war that followed, the Arabs of Palestine, together with five Arab armies, were set to perform ethnic cleansing of the Jews. Fortunately they did not succeed.

I hope that if Ben-Dor, together with Sue Blackwell, try to raise the boycott issue at the next meeting of the AUT, British academics will reject it again with an overwhelming majority.

TUVIA BLUMENTHAL