Prof. (Emer.) Cary Nelson to Lecture at BGU: The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel

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SPECIAL LECTURE 

The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel

Prof. (Emer.) Cary Nelson has gained headlines for his new book and his vigilance against the BDS movement. He is known as a blunt and devastatingly witty commentator on higher education but also as an activist working hard to reform it. He has been a member of the Modern Language Association’s Delegate Assembly and its Executive Council. For the last twenty years he has served on the National Council of the American Association of University Professors; he served as the Association’s second Vice President from 2000-2006. 

In a lengthy piece reprinted on his website from the History News Network, he explains the rationale behind the book. Excerpts:

WHY WE EDITED AN ANTI-BOYCOTT BOOK

Early this year my colleague Gabriel Brahm and I approached a series of academics with an unusual request. Higher education was facing an increasing number of struggles over the pressure to boycott Israeli universities. Academic freedom had long supported the notion that dialogue with our peers throughout the world was a fundamental value to be promoted no matter what policies their governments adopted. Indeed faculty members have traditionally seen that as one of higher education’s founding principles. But this core belief was in the process of being eroded. The movement to Boycott, Sanction, and Divest from Israel (BDS) was waging campaigns on campuses and in professional associations to make Israeli faculty, students, and their universities the one exception to a principle that had been universally honored.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the BDS movement—from Omar Barghouti to Judith Butler—were issuing a number of books in support of their cause. Yet there was not a single book supporters of universal academic freedom could turn to for help in analyzing the boycott issue and defending their beliefs. There was no lack of resources online reflecting both sides of the debate, but there was no one convenient comprehensive package for boycott opponents to use and recommend.

Comprehensive economic boycotts can be effective. Singling out universities serves no productive purpose and compromises academic freedom.

In thinking through the project, we decided reflections on the principles at stake in evaluating academic boycotts should play a major role in the opening section. A central feature of the opening section of the book had to be what is perhaps the single most deceptive and disturbing feature of most academic boycott resolutions—the claim that they impact institutions, not individuals. The assertion that individuals will not be harmed continues to reassure those considering supporting boycott resolutions. Yet a demand to close down a joint American/Israeli research institute obviously impacts those working in the project. A demand to eliminate joint degree programs or study abroad in Israel programs certainly limits student choices and academic freedom. A demand to boycott Israeli journals and bar reprinting essays first published in them clear impacts academic authors. We cite many other examples in an effort to encourage more honest and historically informed discussion of this critical issue.

Then for the second section of the book we wanted an in depth treatment of the single most widely publicized and debated successful boycott resolution—the 2013 boycott resolution passed by the American Studies Association. Sharon Ann Musher’s new essay for the first time reveals the less than admirable political process that made that resolution possible.

Of course only one country’s universities are facing an organized boycott movement: Israel. You don’t get too far in discussing academic boycotts in the abstract before you confront the only boycott target in town. So references to Israel recur throughout, though several contributors begin with general principles before proceeding to the key example.

Using the case of Israel, we wanted to ask and answer a series of questions that should arise when any specific boycott proposal is under consideration: What should you know about education in that country today? What bearing does the history of the country have on a boycott proposal? How will various key groups of people be affected if an academic boycott is actually put in place? What possible benefits will an academic boycott produce in light of the specific political and cultural realities it will confront? Precisely what damage might an academic boycott do? What are the motives behind an effort to isolate one country for this kind of critical attention when no other country is judged by the same standards?

While it is perfectly reasonable to oppose academic boycotts on principle alone, it is morally corrupt to advocate boycotting a particular country’s institutions without understanding what effect it will have on the people concerned. These essays make it clear that Israeli Arabs will inevitably be major targets of any boycott. They study, work, and teach at Israeli universities.

We also undertake a major review of the political culture here and abroad that has made academic boycotts appealing to a significant fraction of the left.

There is no doubt, however, what will prove the most controversial topic we address—anti-Semitism. We believe that the BDS effort is not only to delegitimate the Israeli state but actually to eliminate it and that this is a fundamentally anti-Semitic project. It doesn’t matter whether the average student BDS foot soldier understands that; the analysis still holds. We do not assume that those advocating an end to the Jewish homeland are personally anti-Semitic. We have no DNA test to find out. What matters is that the consequences of this agenda being carried out would be devastating for Israelis and for many Jews worldwide.

We also make it very clear that it is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israeli government policy. Indeed Israelis themselves do that relentlessly. As a movement, however, BDS often recycles traditional anti-Semitic tropes. Once again, its many naïve acolytes do not know enough about history to be aware what they are doing, but their worldwide audiences often do.

Table of Contents of Book