Boycott the boycotters? Think again

Dr. Dennis B. Klein is director of Jewish studies and a professor of history at Kean University, Union. He is currently on sabbatical leave and residing in London.

English soccer fans are gearing up for the World Cup, while its academics are engaged in an unsavory boxing match.

For the second time, a British academic union has called for a boycott of its counterparts in Israel. This time, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) seeks a ban on those who “do not publicly dissociate themselves” from policies it regards as anathema — i.e., “Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices.”

The success or failure of the resolution is not as significant as what is beginning to look like an annual rite in a national culture imbued with hostility toward Israel. Four years ago a professor at the University of Manchester dismissed two Israeli academics from the boards of two journals she owned and edited. Another British professor turned down an invitation to review a book for an Israeli journal. In March a British dance magazine rejected an article on choreographer Sally Ann Freeland because, according to The Jerusalem Post, “she is an Israeli artist and the editor ‘opposes Israeli occupation.’”

But how critics are responding to this campaign is not exemplary either. The brunt of the response, which has been considerable, seems tired. Jon Pike is leading the opposition again against the pro-boycott movement. He is a professor of Open University and a member of the other major academic union, the British Association of University Teachers, which proposed and then rejected a similar resolution last year. In a recent column published in the Guardian, he maintained that a boycott is, “in effect, antisemitic.” He wants to obstruct the election of anyone who endorsed the resolution to a senior post in a merger of the two unions scheduled for this summer. His strategy, in other words, is to characterize the pro-boycott movement as extremist (anti-Semitic), to mobilize for war against it, and to isolate it until its proponents pass his own political test.

I am not suggesting anything like “moral equivalence.” Indeed, I compliment Pike for calling the scurrilous boycott campaign to public attention. But the two sides’ choice of similarly bellicose strategies and rhetoric has led to the polarization of a resolvable conflict. After being censured for her dismissals, the Manchester professor blamed “the Jewish press” for her unwanted notoriety. What else could we expect from what appears to be a toxic cycle of recrimination?

After the publication of the notorious Danish cartoons, proponents of free speech have been promoting the “right to offend,” or as one Jewish Chronicle columnist, Ned Temko, wrote, “the right to argue back — loudly, passionately, even angrily.” The position is noble, but what, beyond muscular self-assertion, does it accomplish? The logical extension of this sort of thinking is apparent in an article by Yaakov Lappin for Ynetnews, the Web site of Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot. Lappin is urging his readers to “boycott those academics who are boycotting us.” In the short run, he writes, it will achieve their “international isolation.” Similarly, the U.S.-based Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) last year urged “academics throughout the world to refrain from participating in international conferences from which Israeli scholars have been banned.”

The assumption behind these “counterboycotts” is a long-term expectation that sufficient pressure will coerce compliance. Counterboycotters may derive satisfaction from the eventual failure of last year’s boycott, but what do they say about its revival with a vengeance this year?

The first mistake in dealing with the latest boycott call is the desire to mobilize for war against it. That desire is fueled by resentment and presumes that a dark discontentment will linger until the union relents. The militant position produces a double jeopardy — the first, a result of the boycott campaign; the second, a result of an endlessly dispiriting commitment to avenging a wrong.

The second mistake is the decision to isolate the boycotters, which, again, creates the conditions of self-isolation as well. Disengagement from those who demonize Israel and distort the principles of academic free speech in the process may seem to be the most decisive response, but it yields to the boycotters the power to define the terms of engagement.

The third mistake is to demonize the boycotters. Pike himself is in fact not sure whether the boycott is anti-Semitic or not. It is, at any rate, unproductive to debate the point. Better to examine it for hints and even statements that suggest a different kind of response. For example, the union’s assault invites, if not begs, for a clarification of Israel’s multilayered reality. More explicit is its commitment, expressed in its constitution, to “oppose actively all forms of harassment and unfair discrimination.” Considering the way it is currently behaving, that may well be hypocritical. But unless it abrogates the clause, which it won’t, it represents a reed to work with.

The fourth mistake is to labor under the illusion that the “victims” in this encounter are innocent and helpless. Fortunately, those opposing NATFHE are neither. Despite adopting the pristine tone of righteousness in this episode, they are, in fact, willing and even eager participants in the cycle of recrimination. Nor, as it’s clear from the pressure they are exerting, are they helpless, though their exertions are merely defensive, a determination to fight back.

Any concession to NATFHE and its supporters, such as putting a human face on them or expressing an intention to work with them, can be viewed as “weak.” But name-calling and isolating the opposition are not strong positions, not if the former exacerbates tensions and the latter amounts to a hopeless retreat. Besides, what’s the goal — a good fight or a fighting chance?

It is critical to dispel the myths of righteous indignation and the right merely to express it. What is now required is a new orientation, and it must be based on a commitment to a new kind of alliance. Such an alliance involves a search for agreement on matters that really count. I am reassured by the AJS decision this year to eliminate its call to boycott the boycotters, and its recent declaration that academics have “an obligation to support the free exchange of ideas and to participate in international dialogue, not to shun and restrain them.” Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Lord Triesman, criticizing the boycott, also appealed to “dialogue and academic cooperation.”

Of course, it takes two to create a dialogue, and an organization like NATFHE may be inconsolable. But if an alliance can be formed around inimical ideas and behavior, and not around “victims” and “enemies,” some even from the union — those who sincerely oppose unfair discrimination, for example — may join those among its critics who are committed to defending, not undermining, the free exchange of ideas.