April 19, 2005

Dear Colleagues of the Association of University Teachers:

We have learned with dismay that the 2005 Council of the Association of University Teachers is to debate a motion calling for a boycott of three of Israel’s leading universities. We wish to register with you our grave concerns with, and opposition to, this proposal. We also wish to explain why anyone committed to academic freedom, as well as the noble goal of achieving a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, should be resolutely opposed to a boycott of the higher education sector in Israel.

Israeli universities are renowned for their cutting edge research and their prevailing spirit of vigorous academic enquiry. Israeli academics have distinguished themselves in areas ranging from the natural sciences to the humanities. Moreover, Israeli universities enjoy a political independence which is unique in the Middle East, reflective of the best of democratic principles, academic integrity and commitment to excellence free of narrow ideological constraints. Punishing Israeli scholars who are engaged in international research by compromising them with a boycott defies the principle that scholarship should be above politics and places those who are working on projects for the improvement of knowledge and the betterment of humanity in a situation not of their making. Many Israeli academics are participating in the democratic processes of Israel and they should not be penalized.

Furthermore, the call to boycott these Israeli universities comes at a particularly unfortunate time. There are hopeful signs of a revival of the Middle East peace process, including the decision of key Arab countries such as Jordan and Egypt to restore diplomatic relations with Israel and the overwhelming support of the Israeli people for Prime Minister Sharon’s Gaza disengagement plan. At a time when the focus should be on increasing the prospects for cooperation rather than conflict, to call for a boycott is not just wrongheaded but destructive. We would encourage you, instead of demanding a boycott, to support initiatives such as the Declaration of Principles regarding academic and scientific cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians agreed last May under the auspices of Rome’s La Sapienza University. This important document was signed by leading representatives of several Israeli universities – including two of those who would suffer from a boycott – Palestinians from universities including Al Quds, Bethlehem and Hebron, and the Assistant Director General of UNESCO.

Furthermore, we are affronted by the strategy of singling out Israeli academics and institutions for a boycott while ignoring the rest of the world. If the AUT does not want to be accused of double standards, then why does it not also call for a boycott of Saudi Universities, because of the abuse of the rights of women and minorities in that country? Or, indeed, of British and American Universities, given the AUT’s critical stance on the conflict in Iraq? Our view is that, as a general principle, the mission of academia is to engage, not to stigmatize, and to preserve the political independence of our Universities.

We respectfully urge the delegates to the 2005 Council to decisively reject the call to discriminate against Israeli universities. We do so in the name of academic freedom and fairness, mindful that an endorsement of the boycott could have an adverse impact on relations between American and British Universities. For the boycott will not just damage Israeli universities and current initiatives to secure Israeli-Palestinian academic cooperation. It will set an unfortunate precedent which will affect us all.

Yours sincerely

Paul S. Appelbaum
University of Massachusetts

Richard A. Friedman
Columbia University

Jonathan C. Finkelstein
University of Maryland

Sonia Bloomfield Ramagem
University of Brasilia

M. Krieger Massachusetts
Institute of Technology

Norman Levitt
Rutgers University

Phillip Silver
University of Maine

Joseph Kushick
Amherst College

Ilan Benjamin
University of California

Tuvia Blumenthal
Ben-Gurion University

Philip Carl Salzman
McGill University

Peter J. Haas
Case Western Reserve University

Ruth Langer
Boston College

Nadav Gabay
University of California, San Diego

Sam Peltzman
University of Chicago

Andrew I. Kohen
James Madison University

Yael Halevi-Wise
McGill University

Alan D. Grossman
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jesse Barlow
Pennsylvania State University

Ronald Krebs
University of Minnesota

Neil J. Diamant
Dickinson College

Jonathan D. Sarna
Brandeis University

Joe Halpern
Cornell University

Ruth Raphaeli
Columbia University

Andrew Pessin
Kenyon College

Barry A. Farber
Columbia University

Richard L Coren
Drexel University

Uri Tasch
University of Maryland

Stephen Blank
US Army War College

Edna Erez
Kent State University

Peter Cole
University of Delaware

Joshua Jacobson
Northeastern University

Rachel Sztajn
University of Sao Paulo

Valerio Filoso
University of Naples, “Federico II”

Matthew Waldor
Tufts University

Fiorella Bassan
University of Rome, “La Sapienza”

Harvey Glickman
Haverford College

Kenneth H. Norwich
University of Toronto

Katrin T. Tenenbaum
University of Rome, “La Sapienza”

Michael Szenberg
Pace University

Annalisa Di Nola
TVI Community College

Michael Weinstein
University of Hawaii

William Sjostrom
National University of Ireland

Joseph Slawny
Virginia Tech

Jacob Amir
Sackler School of Medicine

Henrik Lando
Copenhagen Business School

Bernard D. Katz
University of Toronto

William W. Adams
University of Maryland

Mirna Cicioni
Monash University

Ronald D. Rotunda
George Mason University

Robert Lande
University of Baltimore

William M. Batkay
Montclair State University

Joanna Hershon
Columbia University

Joel Lebowitz
Rutgers University

Henry G. Manne
George Mason University

Maxwell Stearns
George Mason University

Jaroslava Halper
University of Georgia

Emily Tall State
University of New York

Howard A. Smith
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Laurie Zoloth
Northwestern School of Medicine

Meir Malul
University of Haifa

David Bernstein
George Mason University

Michael P. Kramer
University of Pennsylvania/Bar-Ilan University

Ada L. Sinacore
McGill University

Kenneth Dauber
State University of New York

Daniel Bethlehem
University of Cambridge

Jason I. Brown
Dalhousie University

Justin David Abbott
University of Turin

Don Goelman
Villanova University

Larry Benowitz
Harvard University

Guglielmo Verdirame
University of Cambridge

Stephen Tanny
University of Toronto

Mario Salmona
Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research

Raymond Parnes
Tel Aviv University

Eleonore Lappin
Institute for the History of the Jews in Austria

Mark A. Koppel
Montclair State University

Gustav J. Beck
New York University

Simha F. Landau
Hebrew University

Steven J. Miller
Brown University

Solomon Schimmel
Hebrew College

Solomon Friedberg
Boston College

Elizabeth Behrman
Wichita State University

Daniel A. Kirschner
Boston College

Edward Halper
University of Georgia

Stanley Dubinsky
University of South Carolina

Abraham L. Sonenshein
Tufts University

Philip Olin
York University

George Zilbergeld
Montclair State University

Robert M. Steiner
Temple University

Sidney P. Kadish
University of Massachusetts

Gadi Benshalom
Ben-Gurion University

Joseph R. Spiegel
Thomas Jefferson University

Michael Aizenman
Princeton University

Mitchell G. Ash
University of Vienna

Neil W. Schluger
Columbia University

Joel N. Eisen
University of Toronto

Solomon S. Stavrov
Tel Aviv University

Ben Zion Shapiro
University of Toronto

John R. Cohn
Thomas Jefferson University

Boris Laikhtman
Hebrew University

Gary S. Fischer
University of Pittsburgh

Carlo Rossetti
University of Parma

Emanuele Ottolenghi
Oxford University

Ran Lachman
College of Management, Tel-Aviv

Adela Beckerman
Florida Memorial University

Leila Beckwith
University of California at Los Angeles

Paul Concus
University of California

Berkeley Kenneth Lasson
University of Baltimore

Anatoly Libgober
University of Illinois

Vera Pless
University of Illinois

Charles Kadushin
Brandeis University

Theodore K. Rabb
Princeton University

Rosamond Rhodes
Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Irina Reyfman
Columbia University

Bruce Elliot Hirsch
Drexel University

Theodore H Geballe
Stanford University

Moshe Anisfeld
Yeshiva University

Eric Zarahn
Columbia University

J. Zussman
University of Manchester

Ira Tabas
Columbia University

James Shapiro
Columbia University

Ralph Halbert
University of Toronto

Ruth Kark
Hebrew University

Robert Baker
Union College

Jill Shapiro
Columbia University

Evelyn M. Horn
Columbia University

Nathan Seiberg
Princeton University

Israel Ringel
Hebrew University

Julian Ilicki
University of Gavle

Richard A. Cohn
Northwestern University

Shirley Lee
Roehampton University

Harold P. Lehmann
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

David Sanders
Montclair State University

Simon Maybaum
Columbia University

Neta A. Bahcall
Princeton University

Michael Brocke Heinrich
Heine University

P.V. Viswanath
Pace University

Kenneth A. Altman
Columbia University

Elisabeth Maxwell
Oxford University

Linda Larkey
University of Arizona

Elizabeth Ann Stewart
The Open University

Joel Migdal
University of Washington

Daniel Leiwy
University of Westminster

Benjamin Melamed
Rutgers University

Craig B. Langman
Northwestern University

Or Gozani
Stanford University

Avery Meiksin
University of Edinburgh

Paul Ingram
Columbia Business School

Matthew Kramer
Cambridge University

Andrea Litvack
University of Toronto

Agnieszka Bron
Stockholm University Sweden

Steven Bowman
University of Cincinnati

Adi Schnytzer
Bar Ilan University

Stuart M. Sprague
Northwestern University

John H. Riskind
George Mason University

Nancy Pollak
Cornell University

David Miller
University of Leeds

Herbert P. Phillips
University of California, Berkeley

Myron L. Cohen
Columbia University

Theodore Karp
Northwestern University

Awi Federgruen
Columbia University

Sara Shanske
Columbia University

Clifford Stein
Columbia University

Sylvia Sztern
Lund University

Elizabeth Friedman
Illinois Institute of Technology

Norman L. Cantor
Rutgers University

Robbie Smith
Lancaster University

David T. Raphael
University of Southern California

Alexander Blokh
University of Alabama

Wlodzimierz Konar
Warsaw University

Sidney Blatt
Yale University

David Rabin
Georgetown University

Eytan Gilboa
Bar Ilan University

Arnulf Zweig
University of Oregon

Thomas G. Mahnken
Johns Hopkins University

Mark Gottdiener
State University of New York

Boris A. Kushner
University of Pittsburgh

Joyce R. Ladenson
Michigan State University

Yosef Kaplan
Hebrew University

Martin A. Strosberg
Graduate College of Union University

Dr. Ilana Berman-Frank
Bar Ilan University

Froma Zeitlin
Princeton University

Aaron Kupchik
Arizona State University

Michael Lieber
University of California, Los Angeles

Alan M. Whitman
Villanova University

Stephen Shenker
Stanford University

Luann Good Gingrich
York University

Graham Riches
University of British Columbia

Brian S. Mittman
University of California, Los Angeles

Alan Marcus
Boston College

Myra Bluebond-Langner
Rutgers University

Hanne Trautner-Kromann
Lund University

Tony Michels
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Steven Fisch
Fordham University

Gary A. Anderson
University of Notre Dame

Hubert G. Locke
University of Washington

Carlo Zevi
Rome University, “La Sapienza”

Willy Fischler
University of Texas at Austin

Graham Riches
University of British Columbia

Gary Seay
City University of New York

Shoshana Slawny-Levitan
Virginia Tech

Jeffery W. Birns
University of Southern California

Zafra Lerman
Columbia College, Chicago

Paul Root
University of Pennsylvania

Pamela J. Shoemaker
Syracuse University

Daniel Rynhold
King’s College, London

Amanda Perreau-Saussine
Cambridge University

Baruch Offir
Bar-Ilan University

Avraham Faust
Bar-Ilan University

Adina Shamir
Bar-Ilan University

Guy Ourisson
Louis Pasteur University

Dr. Ofra Korat
Bar-Ilan University

Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin
Bar-Ilan University

Aren M. Maeir
Bar-Ilan University

Avi Kober
Bar-Ilan University

Justin Silver
Hadassah College, Jerusalem

Danielle Gurevitch
Bar-Ilan University

Mervyn M Lovat University of Glasgow

Linda Steiner
Rutgers University

David B. Weiner
Hadassah College, Jerusalem

Peter Machinist
Harvard University

Dr Robert F. Miller
The Australian National University

Simon Levin
Princeton University

Jakob Feldt
University of Copenhagen

Michael A. Livingston
Rutgers University

T. Neville Postlethwaite
University of Hamburg

Sam Fleischaker
University of Illinois

Hugh Shewell
York University

Jonathan Levav
Columbia University

Oded Netzer
Columbia University

Ran Kivetz
Columbia University

Sara Fridel
Bar-Ilan University

Jeffrey Goldfarb
New School for Social Research, New York

Olivier Toubia
Columbia University

Aniko Bodroghkozy
University of Virginia

Luisa Simberg
Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Nina Collins
University of Leeds

Richard Rubenstein
University of Bridgeport

Yisrael Rich
Bar-Ilan University

Jo Masters
Middlesex University

Mally Shechory
Bar Ilan University

Yoseph Shilhav
Bar-Ilan University

Sandra Debenedetti Stow
Bar-Ilan University

Ivan E. Brick
Rutgers University

Lance D. Drager
Texas Tech University

Boaz Lerner
Ben-Gurion University

Sigrid Sohn
University of Venice

Ursula Bavaj
Università degli Studi dellaTuscia/Viterbo

Ruth Wodak
Lancaster University

Uriel Frisch
Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur

Ruth Perez Bercoff
Hochschule fur Musik und Theater

Zeev Schuss
Tel Aviv University

Harvey E. Goldberg
Hebrew University

Daniel Tal
Weizmann Institute

Noam Kochavi
Hebrew University

Hillel Shuval
Hebrew University

Raz Yirmiya
Hebrew University

Ramon Lewis
Latrobe University

David M. Schaps
Bar Ilan University

Uri Bialer
Hebrew University

Ira Sharkansky
Hebrew University

Allan Borowski
La Trobe University

Natalia Pylypiuk
University of Alberta

Michael Frenklach
University of California at Berkeley

Jenny Mandelbaum
Rutgers University

Peter B. Golden
Rutgers University

Pauline I. Erera
University of Washington

Jerre Levy University of Chicago

David D. Perkins
Stanford University

Mark J. Schnitzer
Stanford University

Gerald Cromer
Bar Ilan University

Raymond P. Scheindlin
Jewish Theological Seminary of America

Giovanna Brogi
University of Milan

Jonathan Engel
Seton Hall University

Elliott Leyton
Memorial University of Newfoundland

Amalya L. Oliver
Hebrew University

Elena Lourie
Ben Gurion University

Michael Aizenman
Princeton University

Amit M. Schejter
Pennsylvania State University

Michael Otsuka
University College London

Eugene Burnstein
University of Michigan

Ernie Lightman
University of Toronto

Raphael Sealey
University of California, Berkeley

Avihu Hiram
Haifa Technion

Carol C. Bienstock
Radford University

Alexander Kheyfits
City University of New York

Peter Schaefer
Princeton University

Abel Klein
University of California

Robert J. Sillman
Georgetown University

Charmaine Williams
University of Toronto

Alexander Akin
Harvard University

Peter B. Shalen
University of Illinois

Joshua A. Fishman
Yeshiva University

Mark Schankerman
London School of Economics and Political Science

Peter A. Newman
University of Toronto

Claude Schochet
Wayne State University

Esti Sheinberg
irginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Mark Latash
Penn State University

Alan Mintz
Jewish Theological Seminary

Tomasa Bsink
Warsaw University

Alexi Sherman
University of Tartu

Michael M. Laskier
Bar Ilan University

Michael Dine
University of California

Jeff Dodick
Hebrew University

A. Yair
Hebrew University

Jonathan Berg
University of Haifa

Lina Ben-Dor
Hebrew University

Boris Shapiro
Bar Ilan University

Stephen H. Schneider
Stanford University

Yael Mandelik
Princeton University

Abraham Neyman
Hebrew University

Benjamin Ehrenberg
Bar Ilan University

Haim Burstin
Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca

Ziv Kizner
Bar-Ilan University

Haim Cohen
Bar-Ilan University

Uri J. Schild
Bar-Ilan University

Gordon Reece
University of Bristol

Elie Assis
Bar Ilan University

Sam Lehman-Wilzig
Bar-Ilan University

Benny Peiser
Liverpool John Moores University

Issai Shlimak
Bar-Ilan University

Jon D. Levenson
Harvard University

Aron Weller
Bar-Ilan University

Ellen Spolsky
Bar-Ilan University

Alexander Z. Guiora
University of Michigan/University of Haifa

Shlomo Margel
Bar-Ilan University

Moshe Rosman
Bar-Ilan University

Ariel J. Frank
Bar-Ilan University

Aernout C.D.van Enter
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Martha Paley Francescato
George Mason University

Aharon Gedanken
Bar-Ilan University

Mark Pearlman
University of Michigan

Yehuda Schlesinger
Bar-Ilan University

Elad Ben Dror
Bar-Ilan University

Maro Martini
University di Trento

B. Wolfe University of Central Lancashire

Anna Rossi-Doria
Universita de Roma Tor Vergata

Hasia Diner New
York University

David M. Rosen
Fairleigh Dickinson University

Eytan Sheshinski
Hebrew University

Ronit Kark
Bar Ilan University

Annie Cooper
Emory University

Valentin Freilikher
Bar-Ilan University

Abraham Ulman
Bar-Ilan University

Eliot A. Cohen
Johns Hopkins University

Robert E. Osgood
Johns Hopkins University

Pat Lauderdale
Arizona State University

Anany Levitin
Villanova University

Adi Armoni
University of Wales

Sergei Abramovich
SUNY

David Andelman
Tel Aviv University

Shlomo Argamon
Illinois Institute of Technology

Michael Alles
Rutgers Business School

Natalia Pervukina
University of Tennessee

Sergiu Klainerman,
Princeton University

Dan Galai
Hebrew University

Fred Siegel
Progressive Policy Institute

Michael A. Slonim
Ben Gurion University

Franklin M. Fisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Michael Benedikt
University of Texas at Austin

Nathan P. Devir
Pennsylvania State University

Arlene D. Wilson-Gordon,
Bar-Ilan University,

Kevin Madigan
Harvard Divinity School

Tamar Drukker
University of London

Yaakov Elmam
Yeshiva University

Boris Rubinsky
University of California at Berkeley

Norbert Schwarz
University of Michigan

Steven D. Fraade
Yale University

Aaron Levine
Yeshiva University

Joanne Cummings
University of Toronto

Merle Goldman
Boston University

Marshall I. Goldman
Wellesley College

Alexander Samely
University of Manchester

Jack S. Cohen
Hebrew University

Al Kornhauser
Virginia Tech

Lucille Cohen
University of Manchester

B. J. Matkowsky Northwestern University

Malka Weintraub University of Baltimore

Shmuel Shulman
Bar Ilan University

Susan A. Gitelson
Columbia University

Svante Lingarde
Lund University

Zohar Yakhini
Haifa Technion

Yaacov Iram
Bar Ilan University

Elliott Leyton
Memorial University of Newfoundland

Jonathan Engel
Seton Hall University

Vlad M. Zatsiorsky
Penn State University

Dennis Carlton
University of Chicago

Giovanni Moracci
University of Urbino

Milton Heumann
Rutgers University

Robert Kubey
Rutgers University

Irwin H. Epstein
Loyola University

Steven J. Diner
Rutgers University-Newark

Richard Kalmin
Jewish Theological Seminary

Dan Michman
Bar-Ilan University

Stanley Brandes
University of California, Berkeley

Jon Abbink
Vrije Universiteit

Yair Goldreich
Bar-Ilan University

Eli Aramang
Rockefeller University

Paul A. Gluck
University of Miami

Sophia Menache
University of Haifa

Jay Robert Dorfman
University of Maryland

Tomas Buch
University of Buenos Aires

Andrey G. Kalinichev
Russian Academy of Sciences

Kathryn Ann Moler
Stanford University

Bertram M. Schreiber
Wayne State University

Kenneth J. Arrow
Stanford University

Yaakov Spiegel
Bar Ilan University

Wendy B. Gray
Case Western Reserve University

Abraham Rinat
Weizmann Institute of Science

Arkady Tempelman
Penn State University

Bernard Septimus
Harvard University

Andrei Lopatenko
University of Manchester

Barbara S. Reed
Rutgers University

S. Z. Havlin
Bar-Ilan University

Yehuda Lindell
Bar-Ilan University

Lucy Suchman
Lancaster University

Geoffrey Grimmett
Cambridge University

Phyllis Chesler
City University of New York

Stuart W. Margolis
Bar Ilan University

Josef Ashkenazi
University of Miami

Seymour Spilerman
Columbia University

Andrew Sayer
Lancaster University

Mallory Wober
Michigan State University

Enrico Isacco Rumbaldi
Feldmann University of Milan

Laura Quercioli Mincer
University of Rome, “La Sapienza”

Jean-Victor P. Wittenberg
University of Toronto

Paul E. Kerswill
Lancaster University

Miriam Kaufman
University of Toronto

Michael H. Hecht
Princeton University

Joseph Turow
University of Pennsylvania

Roger Freidland
University of California

Thomas G. Spiro
Princeton University

Usha George
University of Toronto

Andrei Zelevinsky
Northeastern University

Abraham Nudelman
Bar-Ilan University

Marc Bernstein
Michigan State University

Raoul Kopelman
University of Michigan

Efraim Karsh
Kings College, London

Lewis Glinert
Dartmouth College

Arthur Cohn
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ralph Roskies
University of Pittsburgh

William Nicholls
University of British Columbia

Boaz Ilan
University of Colorado

Daniel Jackson
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Roni Berger
Adelphi University

Ralph Isberg
Tufts University