This statement was developed for the SPME Board of Directors by Stanley Dubinsky, University of South Carolina and a member of the SPME Board of Directors. SPME welcomes feedback at spme@spme.org . Please include your name, and affiliation if you want your feedback shared in the Faculty Forum.

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].”