UCU promoting Israeli boycott

This summer witnessed the beginning of a startling attack on the principles of academic freedom. Sadly, the attack derived from one of the world’s first liberal democratic nations. Britain’s University and College Union (UCU), the country’s largest professional association of academics, decided in May to consider suspending links with all Israeli academic institutions. The boycott would affect student exchanges, publishing of research papers and attendance at conferences. The boycott has also been supported by UNISON, Britain’s public service union. This reflects the success of a group called the Socialist Workers Party which has promoted anti-Israeli resolutions. Marxist anti-semetism combined with British Muslim public pressure is rearing its ugly head in the British academic world. The malevolent alliance between a section of British academia and UNISON results in a clear attack on the principles of modern educational institutions.
The promotion of a boycott is a shameless attempt to highjack institutions of higher learning to further a political agenda. The hypocrisy of UCU is patently obvious. Why Israel and not Saudi Arabia, Syria or Iran? It is ironic that UCU wishes to boycott the only country in the Middle-East which upholds the same intellectual and academic principles as Europe and North America. Israeli universities are among the best in the world and have accomplished commendable feats in science, medicine and technology. Restricting exchanges with Israeli educational institutions for political purposes would be an affront to fundamental academic principles. When confronting a reasonable and non-threatening counterpart, rational dialogue, not retribution, will demonstrate who is in the right.
However, it seems as though North American universities may be the champions of reason in this controversy. After the initial proposal by UCU, the president of the University of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, initiated an anti-boycott campaign. In a full-page advertisement in the New York Times Bollinger stated: “boycott Israeli Universities? boycott ours, too!” A second ad was later published which included signatures of Nobel Peace Prize winners Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama. Other academic leaders immediately began to take a stand against the prejudiced boycott regardless of their political opinion. President of Penn State University, Graham Spanier, claimed that academics must “speak out clearly” against the motion since silence can only be taken as acquiescence. Thus far, over 300 American colleges and universities have signed a statement that denounces the promotion of the boycott.
The organization Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) has also taken the initiative and created an on-line petition which seeks to collect 15,000 signatures of academics condemning the promotion of the boycott. Their website states:

We are academics, scholars, researchers and professionals of differing religions and political perspectives. We all agree that singling out Israelis for an academic boycott is wrong…we, the undersigned, hereby declare ourselves to be Israeli academics for purposes of any academic boycott.

SPME has thus far collected over 11,000 signatures, including 32 Nobel laureates and over 50 university presidents. Canadian universities have also demonstrated that there should be no tolerance for political discrimination against foreign universities. The head of Queens University, Karen Hitchcock, rightly stated that the boycott is “antithetical to the core value of academic freedom”. U of T, UBC and McGill are also among 23 Canadian universities that have denounced the boycott.
The initiative taken by North American schools has not gone unnoticed in the UK. Professor Mark Pepys, head of the Department of Medicine and at the University of London, warned that British academic institutions are in danger of damaging crucial ties with American schools. The universities of Cambridge and Oxford have come out in clear opposition to UCU. British universities must be made to realize that their relationships with North American educational institutions are at stake if they continue the promotion of the boycott. My University has thus far made no public statement about the said boycott. However, if Brock University believes in the principles of academic freedom, freedom of expression and intellectual exchange, then we must join the voices of reason.