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Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and the Boycott of Israeli Universities
By yaman | June 18, 2007
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau issued a statement in which he says that the British boycott of Israeli universities “violates the fundamental principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech that are the hallmarks of great universities” and that those who “seek to isolate Israeli universities… must also include Berkeley… in [the] boycott.” Putting aside the question of whether or not the Chancellor would have shown such enthusiastic opposition to the academic boycott of apartheid South Africa in the 1960s, we should examine the Chancellor’s focus.
On the heels of the 40th anniversary of Israeli hegemony and control over the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza, and during a time when the University of California directly invests in a number of companies which do significant business supporting Israeli war crimes, the Chancellor was alarmed not by his passive role in promoting Israel’s flagrant disregard for Palestinian lives and welfare, but by the idea that Israeli universities–which some have argued play a significant role in creating institutional support for the occupation–should be boycotted until these crimes end. This would have been crossing the line.
Forget that Palestinian children are frequently prevented from going to school by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints, or by laws that prohibit students from Gaza to go to universities in the West Bank, or by the disproportionately low number of Arabs in Israel who are able to attend Israeli universities, or by the fact that the Israeli parallel of the CIA, the Shin Bet, often is in control of who does and does not teach Arab children in Israel.
The Chancellor, after all, must take a stand for academic freedom.
Topics: Current Events |
June 29th, 2007 at 2:48 am
i like this Asides section.