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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

Ben-Gurion Professor Calls for Selective Boycott of Israel to End Settlements and “Apartheid” Status of Palestinians; Israeli Officials Call for His Firing , University President Joins Denunciations

Brian Leiter

There is a good account, with links, here.  The spectrum of debate in Israel is usually much wider and more vigorous than in the U.S., so I am surprised by the ferocity of the reaction and by the disgraceful performance of the President of Ben-Gurion University.  I am curious whether readers have insight into the context here, that would explain the extreme reaction?  Let me be clear:  I am not inviting a discussion of Professor Gordon's proposed boycott or of whether Israel is an apartheid state [that is not a debate I want to moderate], but a discussion of why the reaction should have been so ferocious, and why the University President seems so indifferent to the obvious academic freedom/ free speech aspect of this case.  Professor Gordon is surely not the first Israeli peace activist to use the 'apartheid' analogy or to suggest international measures against Israel.  So what's going on here?

UPDATE:  Perhaps the reaction has something to do with Gordon's op-ed coming on the heels of the Swedish "blood libel"?

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7 responses to “Ben-Gurion Professor Calls for Selective Boycott of Israel to End Settlements and “Apartheid” Status of Palestinians; Israeli Officials Call for His Firing , University President Joins Denunciations”

  1. Mark Kelly

    While having no immediate experience of Israeli public discourse, my impression is that it is if anything even more limited with respect to the key question of the basic rightness of Israel, and has become more limited in recent years – my evidence for this assertion, such as it is, is this article by an Israeli student who specifically says that any use of the word 'Apartheid' with reference to Israel is not tolerated in that country: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jul/26/israel-freedom-speech-censorship

    Reply
  2. Ploni Almoni

    I'm an American immigrant to Israel, and I was also surprised by the reaction. Just towards a partial explanation: while you're right about political debate being much freer and more vigorous in Israel than in the US, Israel doesn't have the First Amendment mentality of the US. In that way Israel is more like Western Europe, with laws against hate speech, incitement, etc. More to the point, the government is very concerned about criticism that will be widely heard *outside* of Israel and used as anti-Israel propaganda. Remember how the government tried to censor the propaganda film _Jenin, Jenin_ a few years ago? And all this goes double for the current center-right government (which I happen to support in general).

    I think both this incident and the hysterical overreaction to the Swedish thing are just two manifestations of that same concern, a concern not about vigorous internal debate, but about anti-Israel propaganda. The timing, I think, is a coincidence. Gordon's columns had been appearing in Counterpunch and the like, so who cares, and now all of a sudden there he is in the LA Times.

    I don't know anything about the university president so I don't have any idea why she reacted the way she did.

    I happened to listen to a few minutes of a radio show devoted to legal discussions (usually featuring law professors) on my way home yesterday, and they were talking about this issue. I don't know who the commentators were, but one said that it was a clear-cut case of free speech and academic freedom. The other said that he agreed 90%: calling Israel an apartheid state is protected speech, but calling for an international boycott of Israel was, he said, like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. I was kind of shocked, since boycotts are totally legal, but there you go. As I said, while in practice there's lots more free speech in Israel than in the US, there's no First Amendment mentality.

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  3. OO

    Two factors:
    i) Internal: Israeli public opinion has contracted considerably in the direction of the right. The factors for this are many: the apartheid policy of ghettoizing the Palestinians and demonizing them; the hounding and strangling of the Israeli peace movement by the Israeli state; and the

    ii)External: World public opinion — particularly the public opinion in Europe — has considerably expanded in the direction of critiquing the Israeli occupation and atrocities against Palestinians. Even in the hyper-rightwing U.S., uncritical acceptance of Israeli aggression can no longer be taken for granted (particularly in universities). While in the past, isolated voices critiquing Israel could be ignored, the steady drumbeat of criticism from without is harder to ignore.

    iii) Diaspora: The Jewish diaspora is becoming more and more disenchanted with the consequences of Zionism (if not the idea of Zionism). This has resulted in a desperate labeling of Jewish critics of Israel as "anti-Semitic self-haters." It is hard to make such abuse stick on an actual Israeli calling for a boycott.

    iv) Effectiveness: The call for a boycott is concrete. Whatever its limitations, it does pose a "clear and present" danger to business as usual. Unlike abstract calls for "peace," it is something that the Israeli right can envision happening. More than that, it can further shake the certainty of wavering or uncertain members of the diaspora.

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  4. mark lance

    I've followed debate on this issue in the US and in the Israeli press – mainstream and non – for 20 years. Certainly there is a much wider range of opinion in the mainstream ISraeli press than the US on this issue. Even now with the rise of the ultra right. But discourse in universities has always gotten more extreme reaction. Check in with Ilan Pappe, or Anat Biletski on the reactions of academia to calls for meaningful international measures. As an earlier poster pointed out this was in the LA times rather than a lefty marginal outlet or something inside Israel, and it was not just a call for ending settlements or the like. It expressed the real nature of the situation and called for the only form of international effort that is likely to work. it came from someone who has always been a critic of occupation, but who was seen as fairly moderate. It came at a time when the BDS movement is growing worldwide and having some real successes, at a time when the world is outraged by the Gaza invasion, and at a time when continued US government support is less certain than it has been for a very long time. (The powerful are always less tolerant of dissent when it looks like dissent is accomplishing something.) And it came in the midst of a huge upswing the ultra-right. The government is a mixture of the right, the crazy religious right, and the outright fascist right and the universities are no doubt worried about the reaction. (Note there have also been calls from prominent right Jews in California to boycott the university.) Note that there are laws being seriously considered making it a crime to call for Israel to be a state for all its citizens, or to commemorate the Nakba.

    Put all that together and the reaction doesn't really surprise me at all.

    Reply
  5. Ofra

    According to this report: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109275.html there is some pressure from the LA Jewish community that may be playing a role here (specifically, a threat from big donors to BGU, might be a partial explanation of the president's reaction). At any rate I very much doubt that this article would have received this kind of reaction if it was published in an Israeli newspaper.

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  6. William Eric Uspal

    I ran across this piece in the Guardian, and had no idea it was running concurrently in L.A. Times, or would generate such furor. In fact, I didn't think it at all unusual for Comment is free, and a quick google search reveals that Naomi Klein had already called for a boycott in that forum. But this isn't surprising; the further you are from the mainstream, "serious" media of the hegemon nation, the more vigorous and less ideologically self-policed debate generally is. (With significant exceptions — I don't bother with Russian or Chinese media, for instance.)

    Witness the current dust-up between Paul Krugman and Glenn Greenwald on the one hand, and the likes of Marc Armbinder and Joe Klein on the other. While progressives called the Iraq war correctly, we're told that "serious" journalists were still right to deride and ignore them.

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  7. Alon Harel

    You may be interested that there was a petition which I initiated signed by 185 Israeli academics opposing the move by the BGU President. I get the impression that BGU President looks for ways to get off the tree. In any case I am in touch with Neve Gordon and will update in case an action is needed.

    Alon Harel

    Reply

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