For the debate around the South African campaign for an academic boycott of Israel, with Desmond Tutu, David Newman, Neve Gordon, David Hirsh, Robert Fine, Ran Greenstein, Uri Avnery, Farid Essack click here.
For some Engage classics on contemporary antisemitism and boycotts against Israel, click here.
Israel is not like apartheid South Africa. click here.
Hirsh’s argument against the academic boycott campaign. click here.
What’s wrong with PACBI’s “call” for a boycott? click here.
Michael Yudkin’s argument against the academic boycott campaign. click here.
For the Engage archive on the Israel / Apartheid analogy click here.
March 27, 2011 at 2:46 pm
The decision of the University of Johannesburg to actually implement a boycott of Ben Gurion University is indeed a major coup for the boycott campaign. It is also highly symbolic as it has been campaigned for and supported by such high profile anti-apartheid activists – and indeed heroes – such as Desmond Tutu and Faird Esack. It offers the boycott supporters and apparently firm link between Israel and apartheid. However, this is analogy is in fact built on sand. In the debate, which was well dealt with by Robert Fine, Desmond Tutu thought it was correct to ask Jews to reflect on their own past of suffering. Whether or not Jews as Jews can make this reflection, what those of us with some knowledge of apartheid South Africa could ask the boycotters to consider the actual history of the University of Johannesburg. The core of the University of Johannesburg was the Rand Afrikaans University which was opened in 1968 as an academic project which was explicitly part of the apartheid project of the then ruling National Party. Its main buildings are in the shape of a laager – the defensive shape that wagons formed when under attack during the Great Trek. Its intellectual project was to counter the “liberalism” of the University of Witwatersrand which is also in Johannesburg and to propagate apartheid in the academy across all subjects. I think we need to ask those who support this boycott whether they really think that Ben Gurion University shares the antecedents of the University of Johannesburg. It is evident that Ben Gurion University as an institution has simply not acted as a project to support to the colonial occupation of the Palestinian Territories – and its academics have included ironically some of the Israelis most associated with calls for the boycott – and his excellent book “Israel’s Occupation (2008) speaks for itself. Ben Gurion University is not in the same mould of the Rand Afrikaans University. The boycotters should know their own South African history better.
April 2, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Here’s an article that I think would be well worth reading for readers of this website:
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/when-the-walls-come-tumbling-down-1.353501
April 2, 2011 at 10:29 pm
That’s a horrid little piece you’ve found for us once again Philip. Response will follow in a near-future post.
April 3, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Again?
I think, Mira, and I could be wrong, so please correct me, is that you meant to say that while that was an interesting piece, you have several disagreements with it.
Horrid? The BNP is horrid. The Ku Klux Klan is horrid. Mel Gibson’s rants are horrid. John Galliano’s comments are horrid. Etc.
This piece was not horrid.