The
Limits of the Academic Boycott of Israel
A few months
ago, I got into a brief argument with someone on Facebook. The argument was
mostly civil (except for another person who decided to jump in and, instead of
arguing with me, resorted to name-calling), but it ended with, “Well, we just
have to agree to disagree” kind of ending, which is fine, except that I would
like to argue more (and better) for my view. (Two close and dear friends of
mine [a married couple] who live in Beirut advised me, when I saw them there in
January, to post a blog on what happened and to use the occasion to defend my
views. I am acting on their advice, so thank you for that, May and Khalil.)
First, here’s
what happened: I was on Facebook when I saw that someone had posted a video of
a speaker at the American University of Beirut whose talk was momentarily
shouted down (I’ll reveal his name in a bit); the video was of the audience
members shouting him down. Eventually, I was told, he was able to speak, so
that the shouting down was not fully effective. When I saw the video on
Facebook, I commented that such actions are terrible and that speakers should
be given the right to speak, especially since members of the university should
respect the university’s decision (or the decision of whichever part of the
university invited the speaker) to invite the person to speak (I have already
posted a blog on this issue). I was told that the speaker had connections with
Israel, specifically with the Hebrew University, and so it was right that he be
prevented from speaking, given the academic boycott against Israeli academic
institutions, which itself is part of the larger BDS (boycott, divestment, and
sanctions) movement against Israel. Finally, I was told that if I insist on his
right to speak, I am in effect going against the academic boycott of Israel.
Throughout the
back and forth, I didn’t know who the speaker was. I actually didn’t care,
because I thought that no matter who he was, he should be able to speak,
period. Of course, after thinking about it, I was a bit puzzled, because given
that the reason for the resistance to him speaking was that he taught or worked
at the Hebrew University, and given that if he did, he could not have entered
Lebanese soil because no one who visits Israel is allowed in Lebanon (unless
they change their passport or there is no Israeli stamp on the one they use to
enter Lebanon), I was puzzled as to how he could have entered the country to
speak at the AUB. (Note that part of the Hebrew University is on occupied land
in east Jerusalem—land occupied in 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank,
the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. I mention this because it is one example of
how Israeli universities have collaborated with their various governments to entrench
the occupation and other vile policies, though whether intentionally or not is
irrelevant.)
In any case, it
turned out that the speaker, who was none other than the famous political
philosopher Jeff McMahan, never worked at Hebrew University, and was merely an
unpaid advisor for its Center for Moral and Political Philosophy. This raises
the question: If someone who has never worked at or for an Israeli academic
institution is a permissible target of the academic boycott, has the net been
thrown too wide to be acceptable? And if someone defends the right of McMahan
to speak once he has been invited, like I did, can they be legitimately accused
of being against the boycott of Israeli academic institutions? That is, might
one not be able to be for the boycott but still disagree with its scope? Surely the answer is yes. I will
claim that individuals should never
be the targets of the boycott, even if they are Israelis or have worked at
Israeli institutions—indeed, even if they are Zionists or across-the-board
Israeli apologists.
It is worth
mentioning that the principles of the BDS movement do not call on us to divest
from, boycott, or sanction individuals, but to do so against companies and
institutions (https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds). Indeed, after an incident with George
Galloway, the BDS movement had this to say on its website in 2013: “In
its 2005 BDS Call, Palestinian civil society has called for a boycott of
Israel, its complicit institutions, international corporations that sustain its
occupation, colonization and apartheid, and official representatives of the
state of Israel and its complicit institutions. BDS does not call for a boycott
of individuals because she or he happens to be Israeli or because they express
certain views. Of course, any individual is free to decide who they do and do
not engage with” (https://bdsmovement.net/news/bds-movement-position-boycott-individuals).
In any case, my
point in this post is not to debate the merits or demerits of the BDS movement,
let alone boycott movements in general. I will assume that the BDS movement is
right to be doing what it is doing, and I want to ask about the scope of this
movement: should it, in the case of academics, target institutions and individuals?
For the record,
I am a supporter of the BDS movement; I have, among a few other things,
discouraged colleagues from attending conferences in Israel, and I refuse to
review articles for Israeli journals, making sure to tell them why. These are
my meager attempts at supporting the academic boycott. Israel’s treatment of
the Palestinians is morally abhorrent, and its list of moral crimes against
Palestinians covers individuals, institutions, and Palestinian society. That
is, Israel’s crimes against Palestinians are not limited to actions against
individual Palestinians, such as imprisoning them and shooting them, but
extends to undermining the very fabric of their social and political life,
including their universities and educational institutions. To my mind, Israel
aims to reduce the Palestinians to the same status as that of Native Americans
in the United States: not a complete wipe out, but a weakening to the point
where they become voiceless, utterly helpless, mired in economic mal-being, and
forgotten. Moreover, not only have Israeli academic institutions done little to protest the plight of their Palestinian counterparts, they have
actively abetted the actions of their state by, for example, hosting
departments and centers for archeological and demographic studies with the
clear political aim of arguing that the land has always been Jewish and of
finding ways to maintain a particular demographic balance, respectively (for additional examples, see http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=2613; see also http://www.monabaker.org/?p=286). Therefore, targeting such institutions for exclusion seems morally sound,
especially since other means have proven futile given the wide and deep support
that Israel has in the United States and the international community. So
whether one supports the boycott because one thinks it is effective, because it
is the fair thing to do, or because one simply does not want to engage with
such institutions, the boycott is justified.
However, I
disagree that the boycott should extend to individual academics. This stance
was taken by my friend and colleague Mohammed Abed in a paper that he presented
in 2006 (“Philosophical Arguments for a Boycott of Israeli Academic
Institutions”—to my knowledge, the paper was not published), but I will quote
from a modified version of the paper which was published in Dissent (Fall 2007, 83-87), titled “In
Defense of Academic Boycotts,” whose main points I accept and wish to reiterate
and add to.
Abed argues that
the boycott should target academic institutions (for reasons that I will not go
into). Instead, we should work to halt all academic activity that takes place
in Israeli universities, and to move that activity to Palestinians areas. This is all good and fine. But why not also halt
work with individual academics who work at or with Israeli academic
institutions?
First, not all
academics who work with or at Israeli institutions (henceforth, “Israeli
academics” for short) are politically or morally compromised as far as Israeli
policies towards the Palestinians are concerned. Many of them are critical of
these policies, some are anti-Zionists, etc. Of course, the reply now would be,
“All right. The boycott does not extend to them, only to those who are morally
and politically compromised.” But then we run into the serious problem of how
we determine who is which. I do not mean to refer to the difficulty of
accessing their CVs or finding their publications. The difficulty is deeper:
because there is a diversity of views about what counts as an acceptable
solution or remedies to the conflict among the supporters of the Palestinians, and
because various individuals hold different views of what counts as a morally
good resolution of the conflict, we will have a difficult time drawing the line
between the “good” academics and the “bad” academics. Some support a two-state
solution. Is that compromised because it does not give the Palestinians back all
their ancestral homeland? Some support a bi-national state. Is that morally
compromised because it maintains the state along ethno-religious lines? Some (e.g.,
I) support a secular state for both people. Is that compromised because it does
not address the desire for the state to be specifically Jewish and/or
Palestinian? Thus, not boycotting individuals allows us to not have to subject
each individual to some sort of “litmus test” (as Abed put it in the presentation
version of his paper), task not only time-consuming but one that will not
garner universal agreement among the boycott supporters.
Second, by not
boycotting Israeli individual academics, we allow for the proper give-and-take
that is the stuff of academic discourse. Given that the Palestinian cause is
just, such give-and-take would open the door for Israeli academics to help the
cause by working from the inside of their institutions. Not boycotting
individuals allows us to talk to them, which in turn increases the chances of
having them go back and influence their institutions. In other words, working
with Israeli academics increases the chance of having them change their minds
about various issues, big or small, connected with the conflict. Having Israeli
academics return to their institutions and work from the inside helps increase
the chance of their institutions making an impact on Israeli policy. As Abed
puts it, Israeli academics are influential in this respect because “First, they
are the individuals best placed to pressure academic institutions into taking
an official stand against the government’s appalling treatment of the
Palestinians” (“In Defense of Academic Boycotts,” 86), and “Second, academics
are well-respected members of society and thus in a good position to influence
public opinion on important issues” (“In Defense,” 86).
Third, and
connected to the above point, we need Israeli academics to visit the Arab
world, to come to Arab universities, to engage with Arab audiences, especially
with Palestinians, in the Palestinian areas, and at Palestinian universities.
This allows for a direct contact between both sides and allows Israelis to see
Arabs for what they are and to shed many of their stereotypes about them (and
vice versa). Some will be upset by this suggestion and scream that this implies
normalization with Israel. But I reply that it does not have to: Arab states
need not have full and comprehensive peace treaties with Israel in order to
allow their academics to enter their countries. Visa exceptions can be made for
them.
Fourth, I have
argued in another post that universities have an obligation to their students
and to their members in general to expose them to views contrary to what the
university’s values or dominant discourse is. In the case of universities on
Arab campuses, this means inviting, every now and then, someone with a Zionist point
of view and have a discussion with them about their beliefs (as presented in a
talk, a lecture, a workshop, etc.). This would allow the members of the hosting
university to keep their beliefs fresh and alive (this is Mill speaking) and it
would allow testing them against what is being presented. And, connected to the
above points, it would open up the possibility that the speaker might modify
their own views. Of course, we need to exercise moral common sense: If Benjamin
Netanyahu retires into an academic position somewhere, this does not mean he
should be invited to speak. His policies, political past, and lack of actual
academic credentials (though he did write a book on terrorism) would disqualify
him from being an invitee (not to mention that his views are not going to
change).
Fifth, engaging
with individuals allows everyone to keep abreast of what people are writing and
thinking regarding the Israeli-Palestinian issue. It would contribute to a pool
of knowledge that we can all use and benefit from to advance our thinking and
research on this issue.
Sixth,
boycotting individuals runs the risk of being charged with a form or racism or
anti-Semitism, since it might be perceived as targeting people for who they are
instead of for what they believe. (Again, if we reply, “Well then, let’s
boycott them for what they believe,” we run into the political litmus test.)
Although we cannot be responsible for other people’s perceptions, this issue
does raise the question of whether boycotting Israeli academics is done on the
proper ground or for the proper reasons. If it is not for who they are that the
boycott is, and if we cannot boycott them on the basis of their beliefs (given
the problems with the litmus test), on what grounds are we boycotting them?
Here, one might argue that they represent their institutions and that this is
sufficient ground for boycotting them.
This brings me
to the seventh and final reason against boycotting individuals, namely, that
the reason that academics represent their institutions is not plausible,
because, simply, describing the relationship between academics and their institutions
as one of representation is not true, except in a banal sense of “representation”
that means “works there” or “the institution is the person’s affiliation.”
Normally, academics present their own views on various issues, and as a matter
of fact, in all universities (ideally) and in most (actually) universities,
there is respect of freedom of thought, belief, and expression. This is one of
the main bases of universities. But it is one which would be at odds with
understanding academics as representing their institutions in any strong sense.
Thus, academics do not represent their universities in the sense that they speak
on their behalf. (There could be other pernicious notions of “representation”
that I am neglecting; if so, I invite the reader to supply them in the comments
section.)
I have provided
various reasons for why the academic boycott of Israel should not target Israeli
individuals. To my mind, the boycott should target the institutions themselves:
no more exchange programs with Israeli universities, no more study trips to
Israel, no joint research with Israeli universities, no conferences on Israeli
campuses, and so on. But Israeli academics should not be the target.
