EUROPEAN professors are petitioning for a boycott of Israeli cultural and research institutions, because of Israel's military actions in the West Bank. This call by some European academicians is outrageous and violates the understanding that cultural change is supposed to promote.
According to an April 15 Chronicle of Higher Education article, a petition signed by more than 300 European intellectuals calls on European institutions to sever ties with Israeli institutions. The majority of the signatories are from Great Britain, but scholars from 18 other European countries are on the list, as well as nine from Israel.
Steve Rose, a biology professor at Open University in Britain and a co-sponsor of the petition, told The Chronicle, "It's not an attack on individual academics, but it's an attack on institutional links with the Israeli state universities." He goes on to say that the petitioners seek an end to "the state terror of the Israeli government."
The petition will have no impact on the Israeli government at all. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not going to care about what a bunch of European college professors think about the Israeli excursions into the West Bank. Sharon already has balked at demands by President Bush, the leader of one of Israel's only true friends in the world, to immediately withdraw troops from the West Bank. Sharon is trying to protect the lives of Israelis from terrorism, and probably the last thing on his mind is what these ivory-towered intellectuals think.
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Demonstrations against Israel have occurred throughout Europe in the last few weeks. Jewish synagogues and cemeteries have been attacked and vandalized, according to The Washington Post ("Anti-Semitic attacks increase in Europe," April 6). Europe, which has a very dubious history with regard to Jews, once again has raised questions as to whether anti-Semitism is on the rise in the continent.
Moshe Fogel, the press spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport, told The Chronicle, "The scientific and cultural dialogue is, when it comes down to it, meant to advance the international scientific community. Experience proves that everyone profits when science and politics are not mixed."
This is entirely correct. Scientific advancement helps all people regardless of their ethnicity. How dare these pompous professors from Europe think they can put politics over scientific advancement. The mere idea is shameful, and one would hope that the universities where these people are employed quickly fire them.
The idea of having cultural, research and academic links between universities is to make it so that different cultures and their belief systems are understood. By calling for an end to any cooperation or links between European and Israeli institutions, people with opposite views on the situation in the Middle East will be unable to share ideas for a constructive solution.
Cutting ties with Israeli cultural and academic institutions hurts not only the Israelis, but the European academics as well. Such a policy would make it so that certain academic projects would have to be delayed or canceled which many European and Israeli professors have been working on for years.
Cultural and academic exchanges are not meant to occur only between countries that like each other. Throughout the Cold War, the United States had such exchanges with the Soviet Union. While the two governments disagreed on policy questions, they did want to increase understanding of each other in their respective countries. The European intellectuals appear to be against any type of understanding of the Israeli perspective in the current Middle East crisis.
Hillel Shuval, a professor of Environmental Science at Israel's Hebrew University, said in the same Chronicle article that some of the projects that the Europeans are threatening to boycott "played a very important role in maintaining open lines of communication, collegial relations and friendships between Israelis and Palestinians during these difficult times." The European intellectuals inadvertently could be hurting Palestinians as well as the peace process with their ignorant behavior.
There is nothing wrong with scholars having political views. But there is something very wrong when scholars use their views to threaten the intellectual community.
(Harris Freier's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at hfreier@cavalierdaily.com.)
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