It's Time to End the Vilification of Israel - Howard Jacobson
Whether it's in the best of taste to like Jews better when they're in concentration camps than when they're in their own country I leave to less interested parties to decide.
But if anti-Semitism is repugnant to humanity, then it is no less repugnant to humanity to single out one country for your hatred, to hate it beyond reason and against evidence, to pluck it from the complex contextuality of history as though it authored its own misfortunes and misdeeds as the devil authored evil, to deny it any understanding and - most odious of all - to seek to silence its voices.
For make no mistake, this is what an intellectual boycott means. We silence you. We will not let you speak.
Whether it's in the best of taste to like Jews better when they're in concentration camps than when they're in their own country I leave to less interested parties to decide.
But if anti-Semitism is repugnant to humanity, then it is no less repugnant to humanity to single out one country for your hatred, to hate it beyond reason and against evidence, to pluck it from the complex contextuality of history as though it authored its own misfortunes and misdeeds as the devil authored evil, to deny it any understanding and - most odious of all - to seek to silence its voices.
For make no mistake, this is what an intellectual boycott means. We silence you. We will not let you speak.
(Independent-UK)
UPDATES:
UPDATES:
British Academics' Boycott of Israel Provokes Reaction - Matthew Taylor, Suzanne Goldenberg and Rory McCarthy
Few could have predicted the scale of the backlash to the University and College Union's resolution to boycott Israel. Tony Blair phoned the Israeli prime minister to reassure him that the motion did not reflect wider public opinion. In Israel, MPs began drafting a bill to label British imports - allowing consumers to stage their own counter boycott. In the U.S., 2,000 American scholars - including at least nine Nobel laureates - have vowed to stay away from any event from which Israelis are excluded.
(Guardian-UK)
Few could have predicted the scale of the backlash to the University and College Union's resolution to boycott Israel. Tony Blair phoned the Israeli prime minister to reassure him that the motion did not reflect wider public opinion. In Israel, MPs began drafting a bill to label British imports - allowing consumers to stage their own counter boycott. In the U.S., 2,000 American scholars - including at least nine Nobel laureates - have vowed to stay away from any event from which Israelis are excluded.
(Guardian-UK)
British Journalists Union Abandons Israel Boycott - Stephen Brook
The UK's National Union of Journalists will take "no further action" on implementing the controversial resolution to boycott Israeli goods and services.
(Guardian-UK)
1 comment:
Sad and unjust circumstances indeed. I do not understand the recent misgivings about Israel. It is fine to speak about the curtailing of Palestinians rights, but no one seems to remember that israel is living side by side with a populace that largely still believes they have no right to exist. The world needs to be a little more flexible.
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