IsraCampus.Org

The angry responses in Israel to the decision of the British Association of University Teachers (AUT) to boycott two Israeli universities, Bar Ilan and Haifa, have, as usual, succeeded in diverting attention from the main issue - the occupation - to the secondary issue of the responses to the occupation.

The Israeli deputy ambassador in Britain is quoted as saying that the last time Jewish teachers were boycotted was in Nazi Germany. Funny, I heard nothing about an AUT boycott of Jewish teachers. Moreover, if there are "Jews" at all in this case, they are the Palestinians. Those who suffer daily from the occupation, killing, destruction, land confiscation, and humiliation are Palestinian residents - residents, not citizens, because the state controlling their land does not grant them the basic right of citizenship. It does not even grant them basic human rights.

The President of Haifa University declared that a certain teacher who supports the boycott should resign, because one cannot support a boycott of the university and still "enjoy its delights." It's good to know that the President is "enjoying the delights" of the university. Maybe this is why he thinks that the university is his own private property, or the property of those who agree his stance. It is, of course, a "non-political" stance - just a simple acquiescence to the occupation and its horrors, all while enjoying the university's delights.

I would have expected the honorable President to say, for example, that the university is in fact wrong, and would start to rectify the situation by opposing the occupation. I would have expected him to take a moral stand against the occupation, rather than opposing one of the pious in this garden of delights. I would expect this from all other university presidents in Israel as well, for in the future they will not be judged by the number of graduates or the quantity of their research produced by their institutions, but rather by the question "Where were you during the occupation and oppression?" Of course, I expect nothing from Bar-Ilan University, which is an ideological partner and active agent in the occupation through its branches in the occupied territories.

Israel must be reminded of what it tries to make everybody forget: the occupation is illegal; the settlements are illegal; any activity of the occupying power which is not necessitated by immediate security considerations or the temporary upkeep of the area until its return to its local population is illegal. Moreover, it is illegitimate and amoral. This is what AUT says: The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, illegitimate, and amoral. It's not the boycott, stupid, it's the occupation.

And now we may begin to talk about the boycott. Why boycott Israel and not Britain, which occupies Iraq ? Why start with universities, and not, for instance, with the political representatives of Israel or with Israeli corporations? What about teachers in the boycotted universities who oppose the occupation, whether Arab, Jew, or other? Will there be a selection committee? A horrible thought. Is not every Israeli taxpayer - including the writer of this text - a partner in the occupation? I don't have unequivocal answers to these questions, but we must unequivocally condemn and boycott the occupation and the occupiers. The problem is not the boycott, stupid, it's the occupation.

* Dr. Uri Ram is a sociology professor at Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheva. April 26, 2005. Hebrew version.