Thursday
August 28, 2008
Advertisement
Advertisement
News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education
Sept. 15, 2006
Boycotting a Magazine’s Boycott Issue
In the annals of academic conferences, few may have been more ill-fated than the aborted conclave on academic boycotts planned by the American Association of University Professors.
Related stories
- Why the Boycott Should Outrage All Academics, June 5, 2007
- Academic Fallout From Middle East, May 31, 2007
- Input or Intrusion?, Nov. 21, 2006
- British Professors Seek to Cut Ties to Israeli Scholars, May 30, 2006
- Florida Isolationism, May 25, 2006
When the conference was called off in March, organizers hoped that they could salvage something good from the idea by taking papers planned for the conference and publishing them in a special issue of Academe, the AAUP’s magazine.
The issue is out, but the controversy continues. Authors who are supportive of Israel refused to let Academe publish their work, arguing that the entire effort was just an attempt to “demonize” Israel. Ironically, those who support Israel generally endorse the AAUP policy on academic boycotts, which takes the view that boycotts are almost always wrong. So the issue features considerable commentary from scholars who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and who support efforts to boycott Israeli universities — a stance opposed by the association.
Joan Wallach Scott, a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study and one of the organizers of the conference and the special issue of Academe, called the boycott of the boycott papers “just a continuation of the behavior of these guys that caused the cancellation of the conference in the first place — of their absolute insistence that they call the shots on any discussion of Middle East politics.”
While the AAUP’s efforts have been dominated by issues related to Israel and the Palestinians, the issue of academic boycotts does not end there — and the association is also publishing interesting papers about other academic boycotts, including some surprising analysis of the impact of the boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era.
The AAUP boycott conference arose out of discussion of various boycotts by British academics of Israeli universities. Many academic groups in the United States harshly criticized those boycotts, noting that the value of scholarly communication is universal, and that assuming an Israeli university faculty backs the government there is about as logical as holding professors in Cambridge, Mass. responsible for the Bush administration.
Generally, the AAUP has opposed such boycotts and it decided to issue a statement explaining its position and to gather leading thinkers on the topic for an invitation-only conference in Bellagio. The conference was abandoned this spring, following criticism that it included too many pro-boycott, anti-Israel academics and that conference packets had included an anti-Semitic article published in a magazine affiliated with Holocaust deniers. (AAUP officials said that was a mistake and apologized.)
The AAUP policy takes a strong anti-boycott stance, saying that boycotts run counter to the “free exchange of ideas.” While some boycott supporters have said that “selective boycotts” would be less troublesome, the AAUP rejected that idea, saying that imposing ideological litmus tests on scholars is almost always wrong.
In an essay introducing the magazine’s special section, Scott recounts the origins and collapse of the conference plans, and also notes why the AAUP was unable to publish articles from pro-Israel scholars (some of them Israeli) who back the AAUP’s anti-boycott stance. When these scholars refused permission to have their material printed in the magazine, the association went to an official of the American Jewish Congress who has written about the issue, and he too refused, saying that he didn’t want his ideas associated with pieces that “demonize Israel.”
Scott wrote of the scholars’ decisions: “We deeply regret their absence here, not only because it ‘unbalances’ the discussion, but also because their views deserve to be heard. But the views of those they refused to meet also deserve a hearing, and they are published here — not because we endorse them, but because they express ideas and deeply felt positions that help us understand the reasons for their disagreement with our policy.”
In an interview Thursday, Scott said, “I can’t begin to tell you how infuriating the behavior of these people was and is.” She added that those who refused to participate “are insisting that any criticism of Israel is a ‘demonization’ of Israel,” a view that she said is inaccurate and shuts down conversations. Five scholars — from British and Palestinian universities and from the University of California at Los Angeles — have pieces in the magazine that criticize the AAUP policy and say that boycotting Israeli universities is justified. These articles detail Israeli treatment of Palestinian academics, note that boycotts can make non-violent moral statements, and suggest that opponents are inconsistent in their logic.
“The case for an academic boycott of Israel is that it both challenges the policies of the Israeli government and also draws attention to the complicity of the universities themselves,” writes Hilary Rose, an emerita professor of social policy at the University of Bradford and one of the leaders of the movement in British academe to boycott Israeli universities. “We are constantly told that the Israeli universities are one of the major sources of criticism of and opposition to the state, yet despite the heroic efforts of a very few, what is mostly audible is the silence of Israeli academia.”
Gerald M. Steinberg, director of the Program on Conflict Management at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and a leader there of efforts to galvanize international opposition to the boycott, said via e-mail that the content of Academe reinforced his decision not to contribute his paper. “The articles in this volume provide clear evidence that the focus of this project was clearly on singling out Israel, rather than proclaimed desire to explore academic boycotts in general.” He said that the articles “reflect deep ideological and political animosity towards Israel, repeating the demonization rhetoric, as well as the highly distorted Palestinian narrative.”
Beyond the Middle East
While most discussion in Academe and of academic boycotts generally these days has focused on Israel and the Palestinians, the magazine also includes articles about boycotts of other countries, including Cuba and South Africa. The most powerful anti-boycott article may be one from Jonathan Hyslop of the University of Witwatersrand, a leading institution in South Africa, who writes about observing the impact of boycotts in his country during the end of the apartheid regime.
Hyslop notes that the economic and political boycotts of South African contributed to an economic deterioration in the country. And the cultural and sports boycotts of the time annoyed white people there. But he writes that the academic boycott was hardly noticed in the country — except when it led to bizarre instances of injustice against South Africans who were fighting against apartheid. For example, he writes of a South African sociologist who had been arrested for subversion and who had played a key role in training trade unionists. When he spoke on British campuses, he was picketed by groups seeking to enforce the boycott.
“The spectacle of people who had never faced any force more lethal than the Thames Valley Constabulary adopting a position of moral superiority over someone who had seen the inside of South Africa’s prisons for his beliefs is sufficiently ludicrous as to merit our reflection,” writes Hyslop.
He goes on to suggest that the academic boycott may have hurt South Africa in the long run because scholars did not help to build civil society in the country, as they might have otherwise. And he writes that the boycott allowed professors in the United States to adopt a “moralistic standpoint” about South Africa that has distanced them from realities in the country — good and bad realities — ever since.
The essay is followed by one from Salim Vally — another professor at the same university — who defends boycotts of South Africa then and Israel now. Valley writes that “opposition to academic boycotts tends to privilege the university as an ivory tower that is divorced from its social context, and in the South African case, the notion of isolating the regime was a very significant nonviolent action.”
Scott of the Institute for Advanced Study says that she hopes that people will consider academic boycotts (and oppose them) not just in the context of the Middle East, but in a broader framework.
She acknowledged that it has been hard to achieve that focus because of all of the controversy over the planned conference. “What future there is for our statement, I don’t know, but I think it’s a very important one to have out there,” she said. “In the long term, academic boycotts close down the possibilities for the kind of openness that critics of a particularly loathsome regime need to have.”
Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.
Advertisement
Comments
Professor Scott’s comments
Towards the end of this dispute over the conference, Joan Scott, a left academic and trade unionist fingered me, also a left academic and trade unionist, as a supporter of the Israeli occupation. She said that those who were critical of the Bellagio conference were “supporters of the occupation". This is false. In her latest piece, in Academe she says: ‘And Jon Pike, objecting to comments I had made when the conference was canceled, (sic) stated that he was “not willing to have my work published in a journal which she in part edits."‘
Now, if you are like me, you might have been wondering what those comments were. Because, the way Scott puts it, it sounds like just personal spite and pettiness on my part doesn’t it? It sounds like I’m taking my ball away in a fit of personal pique.
Actually, I admire Joan Scott’s work as a labour historian. I admire her involvement in the trade union representing academics. I model some of my activity as an academic and a trade unionist on people like Joan Scott though I’m very junior to her. Nevertheless, I’m not willing to have my work edited by someone who obviously, clearly, explicitly, falsifies my public and private position and record on the Occupation for her own ends — in an attempt to tie opposition to the boycott to support for the occupation of the West Bank. Readers can judge the honesty of Scott’s editing from the coy ‘comments’ sentence I quote above. When Joan Scott denounces me as a supporter of the Occupation and an enemy of academic freedom, I find myself in an interesting phenomenological position — the whole experience of being lied about, misrepresented in this way. I’ve opposed the Occupation of the territories all my political life. (It’s been that long, and I’m that young). I’ve opposed it in print, in the Guardian (UK) and Ha’aretz (Israel) and in interviews on radio and TV in both Europe, the Middle East and the US. I have, for what it’s worth, a history of political and material support for Palestinian academics struggling under difficult conditions. Howeever, I strongly oppose a boycott. Either Scott is incompetently ignorant of those comments in which case, why on earth did she endorse my invite? Or, straightforwardly, she is happy to spread falsehoods about my position. Given that she has had ample time to respond to my request for a retraction, which she has simply ignored, and to look at the written record, then it’s clear that she is just happy with a politically motivated falsehood.
Her claim in Academe that she is sorry that anti-boycott articles were not published is grossly disingenuous. She was not sorry enough to retract an obvious falsehood, or even to reply to courteous emails. In my book, that’s not very sorry.
Jon Pike, Open University, at 7:10 am EDT on September 15, 2006
It was wrong to publish an issue of ACADEME with only one side represented. If articles giving the other side of the controversy could not be obtained, then the entire issue should have been devoted to other topics of interest.
Lots of Israeli Arabs attend all Israeli universities, including the most prestigious. It would be instructive if ACADEME published figures showing how many Jews are permitted to attend Arab universities and compared them to the number of Arabs in Israeli universities. Hans Gesund
Hans Gesund, at 7:10 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Can You Boycott a Boycott?
Hans Gesund’s comment that the essays critical of the AAUP stand should have been banned from Academe because the anti-boycott position refused to participate is disturbing. No one should be able to blackmail a publication into banning one side simply by refusing to participate. I find it odd that those who claim to be philosophically opposed to boycotts (as I am) should refuse to have their work published, i.e., should boycott Academe.
Jon Pike might have had a case if Academe had tried to edit his work in objectionable ways. But they didn’t. He simply refused to try, and he deserves no sympathy for a fit of personal pique.
John K. Wilson, at 7:55 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Why not boycott Palestinian Universities?
I am opposed to boycotting Universities. But what are Palestinian academics doing to counter their “suicide bomb” culture? Indeed, what can they do without risking their lives?
That Israel, whose acacemics are free to have personal opinions, should be singled out for boycott is morally outrageous.
John W. Bales, Prof. at Tuskegee University, at 7:55 am EDT on September 15, 2006
www.EngageOnline.org.uk
For the whole story of the Bellagio/AAUP affair, see the Engage website, here: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/archives/index.php?id=19
David Hirsh, Dr, at 8:40 am EDT on September 15, 2006
John are you confused? There wouldn’t be any Palestinian conflict if there weren’t Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Since 1948, Palestinians have been treated as expendible sacrifices for a higher “moral” purpose. Yet, since 1948, Israel has imposed through its occupation poverty, refugee camps, lack of education, desperation, etc.
While I’m ambivalent about boycotting Israeli academics since freedom of knowledge exchange is tantamount to academic freedom, I’m unequivocal that the Israeli government is not a “city on a hill” and that it apparently has short-term memory loss particularly regarding WW II. Is it a government’s right to desecrate another group of human being’s lives in the name of “never again” when in fact they continue to commit human atrocities using a heavily funded military machine against a group of people who are basically defenseless and desperate?
The Israeli government has every right to protect itself, but not a right to colonizing and enslaving another group of people in the name of defense.
Roger, at 8:45 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Nobody says that “criticism of Israel” is illegitimate
“Scott said, “I can’t begin to tell you how infuriating the behavior of these people was and is.” She added that those who refused to participate “are insisting that any criticism of Israel is a ‘demonization’ of Israel,” a view that she said is inaccurate and shuts down conversations.”
This is a profound misunderstanding of the situation. It is not “criticism of Israel” that worries people like us at Engage, it is demonization. Scott, usually a sophisticated scholar, has entirely misunderstood the substance of the criticism of her conference. She talks about a high level of debate but her description of the central issue shows that she has not been listening at all — or she has listened but failed to understand what is at stake.
Engage criticises many of Israel’s policies. We are, even though Joan Scott denies it, clear and consistent opponents of the occupation. We fight for a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine.
It should be obvious to Scott that we do not consider criticism to be antisemitic. So why does she persist in pretending that this is our position?
When people argue that Israel is essentially and unchangably a racist state, we begin to worry, however. When people say that Israel is the greatest human rights abuser on the planet, we wonder why they say this. When people say that Zionism is equivalent to racism or apartheid, or when they argue that Israel is a “child-killing” state or is comitting genocide, then this is demonization and no longer reality-based criticism.
The danger of talking about Israel as though it were a unique evil in the world, is the danger of the emergence of an antisemitic movement. If Israel is uniquely, essentially and unchangably evil, then it is not such a huge leap to think badly of the Jews who refuse to identify themselves as anti-Zionist. The call to exclude Israeli Jews from our campuses, from our journals and from our cultural sphere more widely, is an important step in realizing this discourse of demonization as a racist policy.
It is a shame that Scott, who presumably has been thinking a lot about this debate over the last few months, has not grasped this very basic argument.
Here is a piece about the “straw-man” argument that “Zionists” seek to de-legitimize criticism of Israel by “crying antisemitism":
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=611
David Hirsh, Dr, at 8:50 am EDT on September 15, 2006
David Hirsh,You mean to tell me that intelligent people can’t simultaneously criticize the Israeli goverment for its abuses related to occupation since 1948 AND not be anti-Semitic?
Your argument is preposterous, erroneous, and fallacious. Many of us who criticize the Israeli government in fact write about the atrocities of the Holocaust on the Jews and are pro-Jewish like myself. That does not mean I don’t have the right to criticize the Israeli government as an occupying, colonial state that has prevented the Palestinians from developing economically, educationally, and humanely...
Yes, you can be pro-Jewish and anti-Israeli government at the same time without being anti-Semitic and those who state otherwise are disingenuous about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Roger, at 9:10 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Saying John is “confused,” Roger says, “There wouldn’t be any Palestinian conflict if there weren’t Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Since 1948, Palestinians have been treated as expendible sacrifices for a higher “moral” purpose. Yet, since 1948, Israel has imposed through its occupation poverty, refugee camps, lack of education, desperation, etc.”
Roger, like many people, forgets that Arabs in Palestine had a chance for statehood in 1947 but declined, and the Arab world instead chose to wage war on the new Jewish state. What has happened after can’t be understood without recognizing this fact. The 1947 UN partition plan called for two states, one for Jews and one for Palestinian Arabs. Arabs couldn’t stand to even have a tiny slice of their land given to Jews, and, in my and many others’ opinions, have never stopped fighting Israel since.
Marilyn, at 9:30 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Nobody says that criticism of Israel is antisemitic
“David Hirsh,You mean to tell me that intelligent people can’t simultaneously criticize the Israeli goverment for its abuses related to occupation since 1948 AND not be anti-Semitic?”
No, Roger, I mean exactly what I wrote, which is the opposite of what you seem to think I wrote.
Criticism of Israeli policies is legitimate and absolutely necessary.
The demonization of Israel as a unique evil in the world is not legitimate because it is (a) not true and (b) it is an essentialist position. I doesn’t argue for a different policy but it says that bad policy is the necessary result of a bad and unchangable essence.
The danger of this essentialisem, based on a misrepresentation of the facts, is the emergence of antisemitic ways of thinking and an antisemitic movement.
Anti-Zionists routinely raise this straw man “criticism is not antisemitic". But they seem unable to relate to the actual problem, which is that treating Israel as a unique and unchangable evil is dangerous for Jews and counter-productive for Palestinians.
David Hirsh, Dr, at 10:00 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Blame
Does Roger place any of the blame for the problems of the Palestinians on a corrupt leadership using its people as pawns?
Publius, at 10:10 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Since 1948?
When Roger talks about occupation of Palestine “since 1948,” let’s be clear. Between 1948 and 1967, Palestine was occupied by Egypt and Jordan, with Egypt holding Gaza and Jordan holding the West Bank. Palestinians hardly fought their Arab oppressors during that time, instead turning their wrath against the Israelis through a campaign of terror that started well before the Six Day War of 1967, when Israel was attacked from the West Bank. To say there would be no Palestinian conflict but for the “occupation” ignores the actual history of the region. Unless, of course, Roger believes that Israel’s very existence constitutes an “occupation” of Palestinian land.
David French, at 10:30 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Most of the commenters who oppose a boycott take care to distance themselves from support for Israel’s government. That makes me curious. Is it possible to be an academic _and_ support the occupation and the governnment?
Douglas Lewis, at 10:45 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Joan Scott’s [Sic]s
Joan Scott’s introduction to the Academe volume confirms the wisdom of those who declined to submit papers to any publication that she helped edit.
She twice uses the notation of [sic] not to correct spelling errors or misstatements of fact but to challenge anti-boycott positions with which she disagrees. That seems to me a pretty clear-cut abuse of the editor’s role.
Scott is, after all, the same person who (in comments here at Inside Higher Ed) previously deemed “critics” of the Bellagio conference “lobbyists on behalf of the current Israeli regime (or fellow travellers [sic] of those lobbyists)"; people people “(pro-Israel occupation) who believe that any representation of a point of view other than theirs is ananthema [sic]"; academics who defined academic freedom as “the freedom to listen only to those who agree with them.” Those who protested the conference behaved unprofessionally, she claimed, as “they did not protest quietly, but alerted entire list serves of lobbyists who began to campaign for closing down the conference.”
The AAUP did the right thing in condemning calls for a boycott of Israeli universities. Ever since, figures like Scott have taken actions suggesting they wished the AAUP had followed a different course.
KC Johnson, Professor at Brooklyn College, at 10:45 am EDT on September 15, 2006
Does “boycott” have just one meaning?
I am having trouble understanding the force of the argument that it is ironic that opponents of a boycott of Israeli academics are now boycotting an issue of a journal.
Doesn’t every thinking academic feel that some “boycotts” are permissible? For example, if I think that some journal has become vile or shoddy or offensive, I might choose to withdraw an article that I had submitted. Is that a boycott? If I was planning on going to a conference and found out that the conference was going to be vile or shoddy or offensive and I decided to withdraw my participation, is that a boycott?
Arguably those actions may be called boycotts. But they are boycotts based on an analysis of a specific event or publication and a decision that my participation in that event or publication would not be good, either for me or for the academy.
No one questions the right of any academic or group of academics to “boycott” a specific conference or a specific journal in Israel or in Norway or anywhere else, if the boycott is based on an analysis of the specific journal or conference and a decision based on that content. What opponents of academic boycotts (like me) oppose is a decision to boycott all academic activities of a specific country regardless of the nature of those activities.
Marty Lockshin, Professor at York University, at 12:30 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
Arbiters and Editors
One thing that does genuinely exasperate me about discussions that involve Israel and Palestine is that it appears to be impossible for most people engaged in those discussions, on all sides, to leave the substantive debates about the nature of the conflict aside for even a moment.
That’s important in this case because there is a procedural question that to my mind can be talked about completely independently. Namely, does an editor (or relatedly, a convener of a conference) have some special obligation to adopt a pose of scrupulous disinterest when they’re trying to bring people together who have strongly opposed views?
I think, yes, you do have such an obligation, whatever your normal inclination towards intellectual disagreements might be. I know I would find it hard personally to not “take the field” and voice opinions on a great many issues, and as a result, I wouldn’t want to accept the responsibility of trying to fair-mindedly put together a collective publication on those issues. Not because I don’t think I could be fair-minded (most of us, I suspect, think that we are, with varying degrees of self-deception) but because it would be politically difficult for others to accept me as an arbiter once I had visibly taken a position on some issue in dispute.
In this case, it does seem to me that there is some justification for one group of people involved in the debate to feel preemptively skeptical about scrupulous neutrality. Now if I were them, I think I might have said, “What the hell, what’s the worst that can happen? Stuff gets changed in my draft? A snarky introduction to the issue? All of those are things that I can justifiably raise a stink about afterwards and probably bolster my cause as a result.” The risks don’t seem to me to justify withholding the contributions—but that the contributors had some reason to perceive that the editor had a commitment on the issues at stake also seems pretty clear.
Others may Monday-morning quarterback this situation in different ways, but I think it’s possible to talk about the professional issues involved independently of the issue of Israel and Palestine. Whether it is likely is a different question.
Timothy Burke, Associate Professor at Swarthmore College, at 1:40 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
Unlike most of us, “Roger” has chosen to remain anonymous. If he chooses to publish his opinions he should have the courage to sign his full name. I find it reprehensible that insidehighered.com would publish anonymous remarks. Hans Gesund
Hans Gesund, at 1:40 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
I’m somewhat surprised that no one has referred to the second paragraph of my 7:10 A.M., 9/15/06, comment. A comparison of the number of Arab students (and faculty for that matter) in Israeli universities, with the number of Jewish students, and faculty, in Arab universities, might tell a lot about the two societies. Hans Gesund
Hans Gesund, at 1:45 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
Israel’s “occupation”
Roger,
You wrote that “There wouldn’t be any Palestinian conflict if there weren’t Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.” How, then, do you explain the Palestinian conflict from 1949-1967, before Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza?
DBL, at 3:50 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
boycott double standards and hypocrisy
The Sudanese government is responsible for a genocide involving between ONE AND TWO MILLION PEOPLE. Yet no one involved in thsi controversy, and that includes Prof. Joan W. Scott, has suggested boycotting academics from the Sudan.
In Iran, 60,000 women were arrested in Tehran in August for failing to have their hands (for instance) properly covered so as not to seduce men. This was a government action, and the government boasted of it. Yet no on involved in this controversy, and that includes Prof. Joan W. Scott (in other respects a noted feminist), has suggested boycotting academics from Iran.
China has held the country of Tibet as a colony for 50 years, has engaged in a consistent effort to destroy Tibetan culture and to colonize the region with ethnic Chinese so as to make Tibetans a small minority in their own country. Talk about ‘OCCUPATION’! Yet no one involved in this controvery, and that includes Prof. Joan W. Scott, has suggested boycotting academics from Iran.
In 2003, the Hezbollah television network Al-Manar ran a TWENTY-NINE PART series depicting Jews eating Christian babies. The series was shown during Ramadan, the most holy month of the Muslim year. Yet no one involved in this controversy, and that includes Prof. Joan W. Scott, has suggested boycotting academics associated with Hezbollah.
In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive automobiles, must appear in public in complete chadors or risk a beating, Jews are not even allowed to visit the country (unlike Muslims and Israel), the religious police not only confiscate and burn all forms of the Koran not the Wahabi translation, AND the religious police have just outlawed PETS (dogs and cats). Yet no one involved in this controversy, including Prof. Joan W. Scott, has suggested boycotting academics from Saudi Arabia.
Scott wanted to take a dead cause, the boycott of Israel—and Israel ALONE—and resuscitate it by giving fringe elements in academia a powerful platform from which to speak, making them equal to those who express a more rational point of view. She failed to get the Bellagio conference and blamed “Zionist propaganda” when the conference was cancled because of the scandal of anti-semitic literature being circulated to the conferees just before the conference got under way. Yet she has now been able to use the AAUP journal ACADEME to give these hypocritical radicals a new platform from which to broadcast.
The last time this issue appeared on Insidehighered.com., Cary Nelson, now the President of the AAUP, severely criticized Joan W. Scott on Insidehighered. itself for her misleading the board of the AAUP about the nature of the Bellagio conference she was proposing (esp. that there would be no attempt at the conference to float a new “Boycott Israel” movement; he found out that was not the case). I must say I am very surprised that Prof. Nelson has now allowed Scott to turn the AAUP journal ACADEME into an organ of anti-Israel propaganda.
art eckstein, university of maryland, at 5:10 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
Quiet Protestors
“[...]they did not protest quietly, but alerted entire list serves of lobbyists who began to campaign for closing down the conference.”
Tsk, what rude protestors!
Hmmm... the *last* time Jewish peoples protested quietly, roughly 6 million of them wound up dead.
Student, at 6:15 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
AAUP Academic Boycott Publication
Readers of Jon Pike’s critique of Joan Scott may be under the misapprehension that it was she who invited him to participate in our symposium. As the following correspondence will show, it was not Joan but I who issued the invitation and twice assured him that he would have the final word on the content of his paper. Note also that we sought four, not two, pro-Israeli essays
I did and do appreciate and share both his critique of Israeli policy and his conviction that Israel has a right to exist and flourish—as does an independent Palestine. I am, as readers of my afterword in the symposium will discover, also more consistently opposed to academic boycotts.
Where Joan Scott and I differ with Jon Pike is with regard to the notion that those on either side of the boycott argument may define the terms of the argument for the other side. I agreed in my afterword that some arguments employed in the effort to win support for the boycott might be characterized as demonizing Israel, but I believe the correct response to such arguments is to demonstrate their unfairness not to use them as an excuse to silecnce their others or avoid responding to other more substantial arguments.
My invitation to jon to participate, his query, and my response follow.
Ernst Benjamin
——-Original Message——- From: Ernie Benjamin [mailto:ebenjamin@aaup.org] Sent: 01 April 2006 16:49 To: J.E.Pike@open.ac.ukSubject: AAUP Conference Publication
Jon Pike,
As you are probably aware, AAUP has decided not to proceed with a conference on academic boycotts but, instead, to publish the papers submitted by invited participants. Jonathan Rynhold, noting as you have, that boycott opponents were under-represented asked whether we would include papers by you and Michael Yudkin as well. We have informed himthat we would be pleased to do so.
I have read the paper that you presented at Bar Ilan and published on the Engage web-site. It’s a fine paper and I would very much like to include it. As we have informed all the participants, we do need to request that papers be cut in order to meet restrictions on the total number of pages. We would be ready to suggest cuts that would avoid duplication with other papers or unnecessary detail but you would havethe final approval on the content of the paper.
Your paper has also caused me to reflect on a substantive issue that you may wish to discuss regardless of your decision about participating. (In addition to being co-editor of our conference papers and former AAUP general secretary, I’m a political scientist, studied with Leo Strauss at Chicago, and taught political philosophy from a left perspective so Ican’t resist engaging in a bit of the discussion we all missed.)
You argue that greylisting may differ favorably from the academic boycott because it occurs with the support of the faculty at the designated institution. We at AAUP would not accept this argument because we do impose censure on institutions that violate the academic freedom of individuals even where their colleagues or our own union may support the institutional action. We do this not out of disregard of the views of the faculty (who are in some instances our members) but because we base censure on established principles, that is violations of policies essential to the protection of academic freedom, not “the interests of our members.” We also can do so without substantial direct harm to the faculty, because our censure constitutes a warning about conditions of academic freedom but does not call for a boycott. Our strikes, on the other hand, do reflect the interests of our members and correspond closely with greylisting but they are inherently short-term actions that, unlike boycotts, have little long-term effect on academicexpression.
I infer from your discussion of Butler that you would, as I, reject the academic boycott initially on the ground that denying Israeli, or any other academics, academic freedom, is not a just way to pursue the legitimate cause of Palestinian (or any other group’s) academic freedom. But supposing that a group of faculty deny academic freedom to one or more of their colleagues, would you not be prepared to criticize or censure their action not out of indifference to their intelligence but because you would hope that, as intelligent beings they would learn from the criticism; as indeed you have done with respect to those of your AUT colleagues who erred in supporting the boycott resolution. What made the boycott resolutions violate the Kantian standard you propose is not, I think, the fact that it rejected but that it simply ignored the concerns of the faculty at the two universities and even more that it used the universities—and the denial of academic freedom—as means in the larger struggle between Palestinians andIsrael.
What I feel I have learned from all this, at any rate, is that we are not given academic freedom so that we may deny it to others but so that we can encourage it for all. In that spirit, I hope you will agree tocontribute your paper to our symposium.
Ernie Benjamin
From: J.E.Pike [mailto:J.E.Pike@open.ac.uk] Sent: Wed 4/5/2006 4:11 AM To: Ernie Benjamin Subject: RE: AAUP Conference Publication Thanks for this: I’m off on leave tomorrow, and fully engaged with a meeting of the AUT’s investigative commission all today. Then I’m out of the country: I’d like to send a substantial reply, but will only manage to do so in the week ending 21st April. In the meantime, could you outline the nature of the publication: the editorial team, and theselection procedure?
Thanks for your comments re Kant and boycotts, which I will digest.
All the best.
Jon
Dr Jon Pike Staff Tutor in Arts Senior Lecturer in PhilosophyThe Open University in the South East
Jon, The publication is the AAUP journal Academe which is distributed to members and to many university libraries. We will publish an expanded issue to accommodate the papers prepared by invitees to the Bellagio meeting. We are planning to publish, in somewhat abbreviated form, all the papers that were submitted plus papers from yourself and Professor Yudkin if you each agree. The editors are the three primary authors of the AAUP anti-boycott statement. Two, who are former chairs of AAUP’s Committee on Academic Freedom, are Joan Scott (professor at the Institute of Advanced Study) and Robert O’Neil (formerly president of the University of Wisconsin and the University of Virginia and now director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression at the University). I am the third. We are editing primarily for length and style. Contributors have the final word on content. We will prepare an introduction and an afterword, that I will draft, strongly reaffirming AAUP’s anti-boycott statement, once we have a final list of papers. We are trying to meet a May 1 deadline for copy so we would appreciate the earliest response your schedule permits. I do not anticipate a lengthy editorial process in your case, however, since, though we would prefer that you abridge your paper a bit, we foresee no need for substantial changes. Thanks for your consideration,Ernie
Ernst Benjamin, at 6:15 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
Academic Blogs re: Israel
Some academic bloggers have interesting thoughts on this issue.
Mr.Answer Man on the difference between criticism of Israel and anti-semitismhttp://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/comments/555/
Thoughts on “Disinformation Campaign":http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/comments/921/
Soundbite, at 7:35 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
Boycotting the AAUP’s discussion
While I think Timothy Burke has a worthwhile point in saying this discussion can be viewed outside the framework of the particulars of the conflict in the mid-east, I think there are important points to be made that of necessity take into account the debate over the conflict.
No discussion of a boycott of Israeli academics would be complete without acknowledging first of all that the left, and by that I mean from the governments of Communist nations to western left-wing parties, to most self-identified left-wing Marxist academics, have generally been opposed to Israel’s policies and in many cases its existence. In fact, it has always been difficult to be an active part of the left in any form and still be supportive of the Jewish state.
There are many historical reasons for the left’s hostility towards Israel. But one aspect of it that is particularly unsettling is its trading in anti-Semitic stereotypes. Whatever the merits of the Arab nations case against the Jewish state, there is no doubt that a virulent anti-Semitism is a strong current in their views of Israel. The assertions of blood libels, anti-Semitic cartoons featuring classically anti-Jewish facial characteristics, the wide spread popularity of the forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and even the commonly heard references to Jews as the sons of Apes and Pigs, are features of the worst types of anti-Semitism.
What is less well known is the extent to which anti-Semitic stereotypes circulate among leftists outside the Arab world. In particular, among some on the left, an exaggerated role of Jews as major industrialists is emphasized. In my own life there there have been two experiences that have especially stood out.
Many years ago when as a member of the Indochina Peace Campaign I was invited to attend a meeting of an anti-war religious group, listened to a report from a group of clergy that had returned from a trip arranged by the Soviet government. The report described the positions that the Soviet’s had on a wide variety of issues and most of it was not very surprising. But what was striking to me, as it was to the person giving the report, was the prominent role ascribed to Jews in American imperialism as the major owners of American corporations.
A second incident concerned a meeting with Harry Magdoff, the author of the book “The Age of Imperialism” at a friend’s apartment. He talked about spending a day with a visiting Soviet official, taking him on a tour of New York City. As they drove past Riverside Church, Magdoff pointed out to his visitor that the Church was connected to the Rockefeller group. His Soviet visitor expressed surprise at the Rockefeller connection with the church because he knew that the Rockefellers were Jewish.
These incidents could perhaps be dismissed were it not for the reemergence of anti-Semitic stereotyping in the current attacks on Israel and the support given it by the United States. There is something sinister about the exaggeration of the importance of the “Israel lobby” in the rhetoric of the critics of American foreign policy. The suggestions that Jews are responsible for the war in Iraq is ridiculous when Jews as a group are, next to Muslims, perhaps the least supportive of the policy of any group in America.
And there is little reason to believe that there was ever any evidence that the state of Israel was egging on the United States to invade Iraq. Clearly, the only reason to believe such an idea is that perhaps a prosperous and democratic middle-east might in the long run abandon its long standing obsession with destroying the state of Israel. That such a development would be good for the state of Israel is undeniable but it does not make the “Israel lobby” responsible for American foreign policy. In the first place, such a development would first and foremost benefit the people of the middle-east and secondly would also greatly benefit the interests of the United States. Wouldn’t even the most strident critics of American mid-east policy also see such changes as a positive development? Are we to believe that Israel’s critics would prefer the continued dominance of the region by religious extremists and corrupt dictatorships and that they would be disappointed if these states abandoned their long term goal of eliminating the Jewish state?
The point of the boycott of Israel is not to pressure Israel into surrendering its existence so much as it is aimed at isolating it from what support for it remains in the west, most notably in the United States. The arguments by Joan Scott and similar voices hostile to the state of Israel seem deliberately indifferent to the likely consequences of such an isolation of the Jewish state. That people with sympathy for Israel should not want to be a party to an enterprise legitimizing the advocacy of activities aimed at Israel’s destruction should come as a surprise to no one.
Jonathan Cohen, at 8:20 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
Scott on Zionist Conspiracy, Nelson’s reply, Feb.9-10, 2006
Readers, please find below, (1) Joan Scott’s crazed rant on Insidehighered.com attributing the failure of the original Bellagio conference not to the discovery of anti-semitic literature in the conference packet but to a Zionist conspiracy; and (2) Cary Nelson’s comment the next day on the duplicity in which Joan Scott engaged in relationship to the AAUP Board in her organizing of the abortive anti-Israel Bellagio conference, to which the AAUP was innocently giving its name.
I repeat that after what Cary Nelson said below about Prof. Scott’s behavior, it is all the more surprising and disappointing that he would let her edit an issue of Academe on this topic. Nor should we then be surprised at the shameful, shameful fiasco that has resulted.
First, here is Joan Scott’s on Feb. 9:
“The conference was not called off because of the inadvertent inclusion of an anti-Semitic article in a packet of reading materials. That was the last straw in a carefully orchestrated campaign to abort the conference by a lobby of people (pro-Israel occupation) who believe that any representation of a point of view other than theirs is ananthema; indeed they claim that academic freedom is the freedom to listen only to those who agree with them (for an example of this reasoning see E. Hirsch comment above). From the beginning, when several of these people were invited to the AAUP conference they protested the inclusion of others who, for many different reasons, support academic boycotts. They did not protest quietly, but alerted entire list serves of lobbyists who began to campaign for closing down the conference. When Mr Jaschik writes “the conference was already under fire over an invitation list that critics said was tilted toward scholars who have backed academic boycotts of Israeli universities,” he is engaging in questionable journalism. He fails to identify the “critics” as lobbyists on behalf of the current Israeli regime (or fellow travellers of those lobbyists) and it is important to know that to understand their criticism. Moreoever,to say that the conference was “tilted” repeats the accusations of the lobbyists and wildly misrepresents the list of participants, some 7 of 21 of whom support academic boycotts as a political practice, but not necessarily against Israeli universities. The rest of the participants, including all of the AAUP members who were to participate, are strongly opposed to academic boycotts. The point of the conference was to hear out our critics, NEVER to change the document we have published as a final statement of our viewpoint. Jaschik says “the AAUP started drafting a statement” on academic boycotts last year when in fact we wrote a statement that was approved at every level of the association, posted on our website and stands as a statement of principle of the association. In response to that statement we got many interesting questions and comments and we hoped to discuss those at Bellagio—discuss them as academics discuss difficult issues—civilly, with respect for one another’s positions even if they are not ours. AAUP stands for open discussion and that was what we hoped to have until the lobbyists began their campaign of defamation and intimidation. That Cary Nelson, an AAUP vice president and candidate for presidency has jumped on their bandwagon is, to say the least, distressing. He speaks without knowledge of the situation, has failed to talk to those of us directly involved in the conference, and he repeats innuendoes circulated by the lobbyists and the NY Sun that have no basis in fact. His comments—based not on careful inquiry, but on polemic, violate AAUP procedure and harm the reputation of AAUP. It is quite astonishing to watch a conference designed to air different viewpoints be turned into a an anti-Israeli plot. Those of us dedicated to the protection of academic freedom can only mourn its loss on this occasion."Joan W. Scott, Professor of Social Science at Institute for Advanced Study, at 3:15 pm EST on February 9, 2006
Here is Cary Nelson’s response to Joan Scott the next day, Feb. 10:
“Response to Joan Scott I have admired Joan Scott as a scholar and as an AAUP activist for many years. I am sorry to find the organization’s Executive Committee in a public disagreement with her. When the conference was, very briefly, brought before the AAUP’s elected leadership, it was characterized as a broad-ranging philosophical conversation about the nature of academic boycotts. Hope was expressed that the international group of participants would endorse the AAUP’s statement against such boycotts. I am told that the proposed list of invitees did not then include people who had taken strong stands on particular boycotts. To our surprise, we in the elected leadership learned months later from a newspaper story that the conference had been transformed into a debate likely to have the Arab-Israeli conflict at its center and a substantial number of boycott supporters among its invitees. Such a group would hardly be likely to endorse the AAUP’s anti-boycott statement. Staff tells me that a conference organizer proposed producing a new statement from the conference. That would defy AAUP traditions by placing contradictory statements in circulation. The elected leaders were by then deeply disturbed that we had neither been informed nor consulted about these developments. Then the news broke that an anti-Semitic essay had unknowingly—but inexcusably—been included among the conference background readings. Once again the elected leaders learned this from a news story. The conference sponsors rather reasonably asked that the conference be postponed, not cancelled, until its aims and nature could be reviewed and rethought. Again, we learned of this development from the press. The Executive Committee unanimously endorsed the view of the three foundation sponsors and directed that the conference be postponed. To have held the conference as planned would have been not to endorse academic freedom but rather to endorse incoherence."Cary Nelson, Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences at University of Illinois, at 10:50 am EST on February 10, 2006
Art Eckstein
art eckstein, university of maryland, at 8:20 pm EDT on September 15, 2006
anonymous
I for one can well understand why Roger has stayed anonymous. It is impossible to criticize Israel in the US, without being accused of being an anti-Semite. I have also witnessed first hand the type of behavior Scott describes, attempts by certain supporters of Israel to silence any debate (often in a very underhanded manner.) I happen to be critical of Israeli government policy, but do not think an academic boycott is an appropriate response. For one thing, some of the most careful and credible criticism of Israel comes from Israeli academics. It is therefore too bad that those opposing the boycott were so petty that they chose to withdraw their comments from the AAUP issue. While I will miss those perspectives, I am going to go out and become an AAUP member immediately! Three cheers for Scott for not allowing these bullies to silence her!
JCO, Assoc prof, at 4:35 pm EDT on September 16, 2006
The main political purpose of Joan W. Scott’s project
To Tim Burke and JCO:
The problem with participating in the special issue of ACADEME was, I think, the fundamental political purpose to which Joan W. Scott was submitting the journal, under the guise here of a “debate.”
Joan W. Scott’s purpose first at the Bellagio conference, which had to be cancelled in February due to the scandal of the anti-semitic literature that appeared in the conference packet, and now in her (amazing, I must say) “second swing” at this issue of an academic boycott of Israeli scholars (and ONLY Israeli scholars): her purpose was to take a position that has only marginal support in academia, but which SHE personally supports—namely, that the boycott should be instituted—and give it a mcuh larger public forum than it deserves. She wanted to provide the pro-boycott position with a prominent and mainstream platform, as if it were NOT marginal both ideologically and in numbers (esp. within American academia). Hence no matter what happened, the boycott position was going to win, for it would be given a respectful hearing, as if it deserved one, as if it had intellectual validity and widespread support, and as if those who supported boycotts of Israel were equally moved by the iniquities of other governments and felt that, say, Sudanese, Iranian and Saudi scholars—coming from infinitely worse regimes than the Israeli one—should also be boycotted. But they AREN’T so moved, and they DON’T feel that anyone else should be boycotted but Israelis.
Hence for people who felt that participating in such a forum was a bit similar to participating in a “debate” with Holocaust deniers, thereby acknowledging the intellectual respectability of the latter position (and since Scott favors a boycott, a forum overseen by an “editor” who in fact favored the latter position!): for them to refuse to participate in such a project ab initio makes good sense.
(I’m not saying I was asked; it isn’t my field; I’m just seeking to show why it was important not to participate in this “debate".)
That Joan Scott chose to go forward with her obsession here, undeterred either by the shameful scandal in February, or by the revelation by Cary Nelson that she had misled the AAUP on the nature of the conference (see his letter to Insidehighered.com on Feb. 10, 2006), and now undeterred by the absence of many writers taking the anti-boycott position, so that the position of extreme radicals here appeared even more prominently: this is not only amazing but a strong indication that those who refused to participate were correct to do so.
Now we also learn that in her editor’s introduction she took to using “sic” to argue against statements from the anti-boycott position. Think about that, Profs. Burke and JCO. Look to the problems THERE, not to those who refused to participate in this.
Art Eckstein
art eckstein, at 8:55 pm EDT on September 16, 2006
www.EngageOnline.org.uk
More comments from Ernst Benjamin, Jon Pike and David Hirsh, http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/comment.php?id=651
David Hirsh, at 4:40 am EDT on September 17, 2006
“It is impossible to criticize Israel in the US, without being accused of being an anti-Semite.”
I think they call this “overstatement.”
Student, at 10:00 pm EDT on September 17, 2006
ACADEME
There are some very interesting and informative comments above. There are also a few errors I should correct. First, I never criticized Joan Scott for failing to inform the elected leadership of the AAUP about the changing shape of the original conference plan. It was not her job to do so. I did take strong issue with the individual who should have done so and failed. As for the editorship of the special section on boycotts—I’ve been on the ACADEME board for a decade, and I’ve never disagreed with the choice of editors for special issues. In this case not only Joan but also Ernie Benjamin and Bob O’Neil were involved as editors; it’s a great group. Finally, it was always planned that ACADEME would publish the conference papers. It is a source of deep regret that some participants refused, but that would not be reason to deny publication for those who were willing.
Cary Nelson, Professor at University of Illinois, at 2:20 pm EDT on September 20, 2006
Histrionics at AAUP
The terrible truth is that academics, as such, are not particularly astute about politics, the typical university faculty being about as sagacious, in this regard, as the typical Volunteer Fire Department. Yet the illusion persists that professors have the duty, as well as the requisite insight, to propound solutions to the many intractible political problems of this sorry world as though these were writ by divine fire on tablets of stone.
I mention this because it seems quite obvious that Joan W. Scott’s fervor, in connection with the matter of academic boycotts, stemmed not from her concern with boycotts per se, but rather from her fervent wish to use the AAUP and its organs as a bully pulpit for the not-particularly-well-judged views of the Palestine-Israel conflict passionately endorsed by Scott and her friends. Thus: a conference nominally about boycotts that in fact constituted a face-off pitting people declaring Israel to be a political monster whose universities must be boycotted against people declaring that Israel is a political monster whose universities nevertheless should not be boycotted. (That there were a few papers not fitting the pattern seems to have been the result of a grudging, last minute attempt to fend off critics. Those are precisely the papers that were withdrawn from “Academe".)
Of course, “Academe” could, in theory, publish an issue devoted to the Palestine-Israel conflict without any dissimulation as to the real question at hand. But I rather doubt the general membership would be terribly pleased. Apparently, however, it’s pretty easy to wangle space for such a forum, while at the same time stacking the rhetorical deck, by peddling the blatant fiction that the aborted conference was really a high-minded philosophical discussion of the boycott question, of general interest to academic types.
Prof. Scott’s judgment is not very good and her eagerness to villify those who reasonably question it makes one wonder what, precisely, constitutes her notion of “scholarship.” Does it rise above mere cheerleading? The claws certainly come out for anyone not genuflecting to Scott’s pet dogmas. The same ferocity infects at least some of those who were invited to the conference under Scott’s aegis. I can’t help but note the presence of the impassioned but untrustworthy Hilary Rose, since, a few years ago, I was a personal victim of Prof. Rose’s habit of loading her vituperative artillery with phantom facts in a manner that does honor to the methodology of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter (vide H. Rose’s contribution to “Alas Poor Darwin"). But that was in connection with quite a different (comparatively trivial) matter, so I will not dwell on the details. Suffice it, however, to note that from such people one does not expect even the pretense of nuanced or fair-minded thought.
I’ve been in AAUP for nearly 40 years. Though I’ve often taken issue with this or that AAUP policy, the current situation seems unique. Never before has the leadership shown itself so eager to play the fool. I wish it would stop doing so, though that, I daresay, would require a number of the current officers to efface themselves.
Norman Levitt, Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers, at 5:20 am EDT on September 21, 2006
Advertisement
Jobs Related to Boycotting a Magazine's Boycott Issue
or search for jobs directly.
Lecturer (3 Positions)
University of Texas, Brownsville
To teach undergraduate courses as part of the Pedagogy and Professional responsibilities sequence in teacher certification ... see job
Associate Director
Temple University
This position is responsible for the planning and managing of all aspects of freshmen and international student recruitment, ... see job
Program Director, Clinical Psychology PhD Program
Alliant International University
The CALIFORNIA SCHOOL OF PROFESSIONAL PSYCHOLOGY (CSPP) at Alliant International University offers APA-accredited doctoral ... see job
Professor of Marine Design/Naval Architecture
Savannah College of Art and Design
The Savannah College of Art and Design is seeking candidates for a part-time professor to teach courses in Marine Design / ... see job
Academic Department Chair — 2001B
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis University is a Jesuit Catholic University. Through teaching, research, health care and community service, Saint ... see job
Learning Management Systems Administrator
Fairmont State University/Pierpont Community and Technical College
Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community & Technical College, with a 120-acre main campus in Fairmont, WV, is part of ... see job
Associate Director, Lindgren Child Care Center
St. Cloud State University
Salary: MSUAASF Range C-starting salary between $38,747- $48,945, commensurate with experience Date of appointment: ... see job
Adjunct Assistant Professor — CMA
Johnson County Community College
A career at Johnson County Community College is more than a job. We believe it’s important to invest in our employees and ... see job
Research Technician II
University of Georgia
Job Summary Individual will conduct field research and participate in cotton production. Work will be ... see job
Associate Director
Princeton University
Position Summary: The Office of Audit and Compliance (OAC) at Princeton University serves as a proactive ... see job
Home
| Sign up | Log in
| About us
| Work for Us
| Press Releases
| Rights and permissions
| Contact us
| Advertise
| Partners
| RSS 
| Podcasts
| Links
| Privacy
| My Account
© Copyright 2008 Inside Higher Ed
Standing on Principle
Professor Scott’s pique notwithstanding, three cheers to those scholars who refused to dignify this “debate.”
Publius, at 5:50 am EDT on September 15, 2006