A persistent and recurrent theme in arguments used by Zionist and other Israel lobby groups to counter or undermine the Palestinian-initiated academic boycott of Israel [1] is that academic boycotts are "anathema to the free flow of thoughts and ideas" and therefore are the "antithesis of academic freedom." This argument has been refuted quite thoroughly by BDS activists, particularly in PACBI and BRICUP, over the years; still its convenience and demagogic utility have given it longevity.
PACBI has always argued that the notion of academic freedom as used in the above is not only based on false premises; it also betrays an Israel-centric discourse and agenda that undervalue the rights of the oppressed, the Palestinians, and privileges the oppressors, the Israelis.
Since the PACBI Call for academic boycott, endorsed and advocated by BRICUP and other PACBI partners around the world, unambiguously targets institutions, not individual academics, the assumption that the boycott stifles academic exchange and the free flow of ideas is untenable. Nothing in the PACBI Call or in the elaborate PACBI Guidelines for the International Academic Boycott of Israel [2] prevents any Israeli academic from traveling and participating in conferences and research projects, so long as the project or visit is not sponsored by or conducted on behalf of a boycottable Israeli institution, as all universities are.
Israeli academic institutions are targeted for boycott because of their persistent complicity in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, racial discrimination and denial of refugee rights. This collusion takes various forms, from systematically providing the military-intelligence establishment with indispensable research -- on demography, geography, urban planning, hydrology, psychology, among other fields -- that directly benefits the occupation apparatus; to tolerating and often rewarding racist speech, theories and “scientific” research; to institutionalizing discrimination against Palestinian Arab citizens; to suppressing Israeli academic research on the Nakba [3]; to directly committing acts that contravene international law, such as the construction of campuses or dormitories in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the Hebrew University and the so-called Ariel University Center of Samaria have done.
Accordingly, although the ultimate objective of the boycott is to bring about Israel’s compliance with international law and its respect for Palestinian human and political rights, PACBI’s targeting of the Israeli academy is not merely a means to an end, but rather part of that end. This is especially true when taking into account the fact that the academic boycott is one component of a general campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) adopted by a decisive majority of Palestinian civil society.
Among other problematic aspects, the conception of academic freedom used to muzzle debate on the academic boycott of Israel appears to be restricted to the suppression of the “free exchange of ideas among academics,” leaving out the situation of academics in contexts of colonialism, military occupation and other forms of national oppression, where “material and institutional foreclosures […] make it impossible for certain historical subjects to lay claim to the discourse of rights itself,” as Judith Butler eloquently argues.[4] Academic freedom, from this angle, becomes the exclusive privilege of some academics but not others.
The protection of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas cannot be the only norm dictating the political engagement of academics. Often, when oppression characterizes all social and political relations and structures, as in the case of South Africa during apartheid or indeed Palestine, there are equally important and sometimes more important freedoms that must be fought for, especially by academics and intellectuals. The aim of the academic boycott of Israel, in this context, is not to safeguard academic freedom as an abstract principle, or to obtain better conditions for academic freedom in Palestine, but to obtain justice and fundamental rights for the entire Palestinian people, including academics.
The academic boycott that the Palestinians are calling for aims to bring about an end to Israel‘s colonial and apartheid policies through targeting one institutional arena deeply implicated in the state’s violation of international law and Palestinian rights. The overriding principle is not academic freedom (whether for Palestinians or Israelis), but freedom from colonial rule and oppression. The underlying principle here is the equality of human beings in moral worth and their equal right to live in freedom, as expressed in the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This same principle informed the struggle in South Africa and the international support it received.
Privileging academic freedom as above all other freedoms contradicts seminal international norms set by the United Nations. The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights, for instance, proclaims that [5]:
All human rights are universal, indivisible […] interdependent and interrelated. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis. While the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
By turning the free flow of ideas to an absolute, unconditional value, the opponents of academic boycott come into conflict with the internationally accepted conception of academic freedom, as defined by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which states [6]:
Academic freedom includes the liberty of individuals to express freely opinions about the institution or system in which they work, to fulfill their functions without discrimination or fear of repression by the State or any other actor, to participate in professional or representative academic bodies, and to enjoy all the internationally recognized human rights applicable to other individuals in the same jurisdiction. The enjoyment of academic freedom carries with it obligations, such as the duty to respect the academic freedom of others, to ensure the fair discussion of contrary views, and to treat all without discrimination on any of the prohibited grounds. [Emphasis added]
When scholars neglect or altogether abandon their said obligations, they thereby forfeit their right to exercise academic freedom. This rights-obligations equation is the general underlying principle of international law’s position on human rights.
Furthermore, many who have hurled the "suppressing academic freedom" charge at advocates of the academic boycott against Israel completely ignore the rampant abuse of this "freedom" in the Israeli academy to protect and mainstream racist incitement against the indigenous Palestinians. If upholding Nazi views, denying the Holocaust and espousing anti-Semitic theories are widely regarded in the Western academy as falling outside the realm of academic freedom, why should the racially exclusivist Zionist discourse, Nakba denial and Islamophobic/anti-Arab speech and "academic theories" be viewed as normal or acceptable under the rubric of freedom of speech?
Finally, it is quite revealing that prominent academic institutions in the West that were quick to condemn the initial British efforts for boycott of the Israeli academy did not feel any moral obligation to stand up against the Israeli colonial and apartheid injustices which prompted those boycott efforts in the first place. It is this double standard that calls into question the very motives of those who insist on condemning the academic boycott of Israel – and only of Israel! – as conflicting with "academic freedom."
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This column is based on previously published articles by PACBI members, particularly the contributions by Lisa Taraki and Omar Barghouti to the special issue of Academe, September-October 2006, the publication of the Association of American University Professors (AAUP).
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2006/SO/Boycott/Critics.htm [1] PACBI Call for Boycott:
http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869 [2]
http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108 [3] Oren Ben-Dor argues that one of the purposes of the proposed academic boycott is to "provide a means to transcend the publicly-sanctioned limits of debate," adding that, "Such freedom is precisely what is absent in Israel." From this angle, the boycott is seen as "generating" true academic freedom. "The Zionist ideology which stipulates that Israel must retain its Jewish majority is a non-debatable given in the country -- and the bedrock of opposition to allowing the return of Palestinian refugees. The very few intellectuals who dare to question this sacred cow are labeled ‘extremists‘." Oren Ben-Dor, “Academic Freedom in Israel is Central to Resolving the Conflict,” CounterPunch, May 21/22, 2005.
http://www.counterpunch.org/bendor05212005.html [4] Judith Butler, “Israel/Palestine and the Paradoxes of Academic Freedom,” Radical Philosophy, V.135, January-February 2006.
[5] United Nations World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, July 12, 1993.
http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/A.CONF.157.23.En?OpenDocument [6] UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, The Right to Education (Art.13), December 8, 1999.
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/ae1a0b126d068e868025683c003c8b3b?Opendocument http://www.bricup.org.uk/documents/archive/BRICUPNewsletter23.pdf
Posted on 05-12-2009
