SPME Statement on UCU Boycott

The Board of Directors and over 10,000 Network Members of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) are deeply disappointed to learn that the British University and College Union (UCU) have approved motions which could lead to a boycott of Israeli academics.

SPME condemns this action, instigated by a small group of anti-Israel union delegates who appear not to represent the views of the union membership and who have singled out Israel for opprobrium. The motion is an attempt to delegitimize and to silence the only Jewish state in the world, one of a tiny minority of states in the Middle East that truly honor academic freedom. In Israel's prestigious universities, faculty members represent all religious and political persuasions. Many Israeli professors are Arabs; many are Muslims. How professors at universities in Arab countries are Jews? How many are non-Muslims? How many belong to nondominant Muslim denominations?

In Iran, professors have been purged from universities for ideological and religious reasons, and an American academic, Haleh Esfandiari, was recently imprisoned while visiting her 93-year-old mother. Despite the gargantuan scale of human rights abuses in Sudan, Syria, China, Saudi Arabia, and, yes, Gaza, the UCU is not considering a boycott against any of them. Why not?


The proposed boycott is immoral and antithetical to academic principles. It shuts off dialogue, when one of the key purposes of universities is to promote dialogue and thereby the pursuit of truth. It ignores existing projects where Israeli and Palestinian academics cooperate. It requires academics to hew to one ideological line. And it constitutes discrimination on the basis of nationality.

Call to Action and Establishment of SPME International Task Force on Countering Academic and Professional Boycotts

Here is what SPME is asking all professors to initiate a worldwide academic protest to this action:

1) Write to UCU head Sally Hunt at shunt@ucu.org.uk . Ms. Hunt has publicly opposed the boycott-enabling motions. Express your support for her argument that the boycott motion may not be implemented until it has been presented to, discussed by, and passed by a vote of the full membership, analogous to motions for strikes. Please share your thoughts, feelings and analysis in a collegial and respectful fashion. Please send blind copies of your letters to SPME at spme@spme.net and the Fair Play Campaign Group at ucu@fairplaycg.org.uk .

2) Write to all professional or scholarly organizations with which you are affiliated. Urge or petition the leadership of that organization to issue a statement opposing academic boycotts in general and the UCU's boycott motion in particular.

3) As a result of these boycott action, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is forming an International Task Force on Countering Academic and Professional Boycotts. Its charge will be to promote academic freedom and to wage anti-boycott campaigns in professional and academic organizations, societies and associations and in colleges and universities by working within these institutions as members of the academic community. SPME is recruiting interested contributing members to this important international task force. To join, you must be a contributing network member. To join, click here . To apply to join this task force, click here . To support the important work of this Task Force, please make a contribution by clicking here . The full Task Force has not yet been appointed, but will include:

Edward S. Beck, Ed.D., Walden University, President Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
John R. Cohn, M.D. Professor of Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University
Stanley Dubinsky, Ph.D., Associate Dean, University of South Carolina, SPME Board of Directors
Lizbeth Fried, Ph.D., University of Michigan
Richard Lubman, M.D.University of Southern California School of Medicine, SPME-USC Chapter Co-Chair
Ed Morgan, JD Ph.D. University of Toronto School of Law
Edgar Pick, M.D. Ph.D., Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University
Elihu Richter, M.D. Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center
Harvey Risch, M.D, Yale University School of Medicine

Comments from Academic Peers on the Boycott

Edward Beck, Walden University and President of SPME, commented: " In calling for a boycott of Israel academics, the British have separated themselves, not the Israelis, from the global academic community which firmly condemns academic boycotts for moral, ethical and intellectual reasons, frequently acknowledging that academics are active in trying to solve problems and not create additional ones."

"I am sorry that one of the first acts of the newly formed University and College Union has been to jettison the principle of the Universality of Science and Learning, which has been at the heart of academic activity for so long This decision brings discredit on the Union." said Oxford University scientist, Michael Yudkin.

Ashley Grossman, William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and the London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London points out, "...I have yet to meet any member of an Israeli University who believes that there should be other than an establishment of a Palestinian state on equal terms with Israel: would that were true of all Palestinian opinion. The organisers of the boycott may state otherwise, but this one is another example of creeping salon anti-semitism that we are now become accustomed to in the UK."

Hebrew University Vidal Sasson Center for Research on Anti-Semitism Research Associate and SPME Board Member from Germany, Matthias Kuentzel remarks. "Hostilities against Israel appear today in the form of a pincer movement: On one side, we have anti-Semites such as Ahmadinejad or Hamas who draw their “knowledge” about Jews from the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” On the other side we have non-Jewish and Jewish “fellow travellers of anti-Semitism” in progressive Western movements and governments who take up and proliferate, albeit in muted form, Iran’s attempts to delegitimize Israel."

Associate Dean Stanley Dubinsky of the University of South Carolina, also a member of the SPME Board of Directors urges his colleagues to consider these thoughts. "The passage of an academic boycott motion by the University and College Union (UCU) confirms for the rest of the academic world, more than anything else, what American Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg calls a "widespread anti-Israel and anti-semitic current in British opinion". The British anti-semites of Brighton (UB) and East London (UEL) have come skittering out from under the woodwork to make their loathing of Israel a matter of public record. In their ardor for their cause, they appear to have ignored the fact that their motion places their faculty union and all of its members squarely at odds with the most basic principles of academic freedom. By the promotion of academic boycotts and political censure, UCU will become actively engaged (in its inaugural year) in the undermining of open and free exchange of ideas and will place itself firmly in opposition to the advancement of human knowledge. In response to this and other previous boycott attempts, I have secured honorary affiliations with Bar Ilan University and Haifa University. In this manner, I declare myself to be a member of that class to which the UCU boycott pertains (for the purposes of making it clear that I fit into the boycotted category, the UCU membership should attribute to me any and all opinions which would place me in the class of individuals to be boycotted). I, for my part, will not boycott anyone for their beliefs in my various editorial and academic roles, but I will be certain to advise all my British correspondents and colleagues of the dilemma that a UCU boycott may place them in, whenever appropriate. I would urge all academics of moral courage and ethical decency to do likewise, and secure for themselves the yellow star of Israeli affiliation, and so help the British unionists to more quickly realize what fools they have made of themselves and their colleagues. "

Donna Robinson Divine, Morningstar Professor of Government, Smith College observes, " The UCU call for a boycott reveals not only profound ignorance of the Middle East conflict but also deep illiteracy about the academic mission. Academicians should be able to think without resort to slogans and mantras."

Law Professor Ed Morgan of the University of Toronto, makes this interesting analysis, "In the United States, the Export Administration Act, as amended in 1977, represents a comprehensive legislative response to the longstanding Arab League trade and investment boycott of Israel. Prohibited activities include refusing to do business for boycott reasons, taking discriminatory actions that are boycott based, engaging in schemes intended to place a boycotted person or entity at a commercial disadvantage, etc. In addition, the U.S. Treasury Department enforces the anti-boycott provisions of the Tax Reform Act of 1976, which deny certain tax benefits to those who agree to “participate in or cooperate with an international boycott.” While the focus of the legislation is on commercial relationships, and it might take some inventive interpretations or even amendments to apply the law to non-commercial contexts such as university activities, the notion that nationality-based boycotts are offensive in a liberal society is certainly reflected in the anti-boycott statutes. The important link between a boycott of Israel - be it commercial or academic - and the impact on the Jewish community was succinctly stated by President Jimmy Carter who, in signing the EAA amendments into force on June 22, 1977, declared that, “The bill seeks…to end the divisive effects on American life of foreign boycotts aimed at Jewish members of our society.” It may seem ironic today, but it was President Carter who identified those who would boycott Israel as practicing a special form of apartheid. Carter stated, “If we allow such a precedent to become established, we open the door to similar action against any ethnic, religious, or racial group in America.”

University of Buffalo SPME Chapter Chair Prof. Ernest Sternberg, comments, " Today, leaders of the British academic labor union have approved a boycott of Jewish academics, in Israel, the country in which Jews have built as a democratic, tolerant home in the wake of worldwide discrimination, pogroms, and genocide. At a time when Israel is subjected to threats and active attempts at annihilation from Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamist extremists, the UCU has sought once again to target the victim. While hundreds of thousands are murdered in Darfur, repressive occupation continues in Tibet, ethnic cleansing takes place West Irian, and suicide-terrorism causes mass murder in around the world, UCU targets Israel. Through ignorance or malice, UCU leaders have, though this scapegoating of Israel, become complicit with bigotry, racism, and the yearning for genocide.”

SPME Board of Directors

Edward S. Beck, Ed.D., CCMHC, NCC, LPC, President
Walden University, Alvernia College, Susquehanna Institute

Board of Directors

Jonathan Adelman, Ph.D., University of Denver
Steven Albert, Ph.D., MPH, University of Pittsburgh
Leila Beckwith, MD, University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA)
John R. Cohn, MD, Thomas Jefferson University
Donna Robinson Divine, Ph.D., Smith College
Stanley Dubinsky, Ph.D., U. of South Carolina
Rev. India E. Garnett, M.Div. Treasurer, Harrisburg PA Chapter, United Church of Christ
Rabbi Peter Haas, Ph.D. Case Western Reserve U.
Judith Jacobson, Dr. P.H., Vice President, Columbia U.
Efraim Karsh, Kings College U. of London
Matthias Kuentzel, Ph.D., Germany
Richard Landes,Ph.D. Boston U.
Ruth Lichtenberg-Contreras, Ph.D., Secretary, U. of Vienna and Natural History Museum of Vienna
Robert S. Mirin, Esq., Harrisburg, PA
G.S. Don Morris, Ph.D.,California Polytechnic U./Wingate Institute IL
Philip Carl Salzman,Ph.D. McGill U.
Gerald Steinberg, Ph.D., Bar Ilan U.
Ernest Sternberg, Ph.D. U. of Buffalo

For Further Information, contact Dr. Edward S. Beck at 717.576.5038 or ScholarsforPeace@aol.com

Additional Resources:

Academic Friends of Israel

International Advisory Board on Academic Freedom

ENGAGE

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