Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumLeft-wing Israeli academics, shunned at home and abroad
Countless words have been written in the past week about British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawkings decision to cancel his participation in the upcoming Israeli Presidential Conference on the biggest issues facing humanity. While many have asked whether an academic boycott of Israel can achieve similar results to the one of apartheid South Africa or questioned the wisdom of Hawkings decision, little attention has been paid to some of the people on the receiving end of the boycott: Israeli academics.
Left-wing Israeli academics have in the past few years faced a great challenge. Threatened with censorship, prosecution and ostracism in their home universities, they have been subtly forced to hold their tongues when it comes to publicly expressing their political opinions. In 2009, Neve Gordon nearly lost his job as a politics professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev after writing an op-ed arguing that Israel has become an apartheid state that can only be saved by an international boycott. One year later, in 2010, world-renowned art theorist Ariella Azoulay was denied tenure by Bar-Ilan University apparently due to her pro-Palestinian political views. These incidents send Israeli academics a clear message: tolerance of critical opinions is running out.
It is for exactly this reason that many Israelis pursue academic careers abroad. But in the international academic community, they often find that no matter how far left or pro-peace they are, their Israeliness remains an obstacle. Universities and scholars that explicitly support boycotting Israeli academic institutions are still relatively rare, but it seems that to avoid undesirable political rows, many universities choose not to collaborate with their Israeli counterparts or offer scholarships to Israeli students. In many cases, Israelis looking to participate in student-exchange programs or pay for postgraduate studies in Europe, and especially the United Kingdom, are unable to find any opportunities. When it comes to funding, they tend to discover Israel is neither part of the Middle East nor of Europe. Israelis are usually not entitled to apply for the scholarships available to other foreign students.
While their Palestinian fellows enjoy the political and financial support of active pro-Palestinian university societies and generous scholarships designed specifically for them, the implicit message to Israelis is often: It doesnt really matter what you say or think, because we simply dont want to hear from you. For example, British Member of Parliament George Galloway walked out a debate at Oxford University three months ago simply because he learned that his student opponent was an Israeli citizen. The fact that the student was about to explain the necessity of an agreement recognizing both Israel and a Palestinian state did not matter.
more...
http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/left-wing-israeli-academics-shunned-at-home-and-abroad-or-tshuva/
shira
(30,109 posts)We should be learning lessons they have something to offer us and we have something to offer them. This must include playing a constructive and facilitative role in bringing together Palestinian and Israeli workers in the spirit of workers solidarity.
You may have been told otherwise but the Histadrut unites hundreds and thousands of members regardless of religion or race.
Palestinian Israelis make up 20 per cent of its membership. Thats one in five members. They have also taken high court action to win higher pay and union rights for West Bank workers. A functioning relationship exists with the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions despite efforts by some in the UK to break this relationship.
The Histadrut is not part of the Israeli government nor is it an unwavering supporter; they have called for an end to settlement construction and the blockade of Gaza to be lifted.
We should be supporting progressive forces and the Labour movement in Israel by sending out messages of hope. We should not be telling Palestinians that we dont think they have anything to gain from engaging with the majority of workers in Israel.
There is everything to gain! We are internationalists and fellow workers and our interests are the same. We need to reengage with the Israeli Labour movement and do all we can to progress our internationalist principles.
We cannot continue to obstruct the ability of our fellow workers in the Middle East to work together toward a just and progressive peace in the region which ensures justice for Palestine and security for Israel.
Our message from Unison Conference 2013 must be a message of hope, that we want them to and are willing to help them to work together. We must also send a message of support in their struggle on both sides for fair and just labour rights and ultimately a fair and just solution....
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/06/we-should-be-supporting-progressive-forces-in-israel/
Gee, who'da thought BDS holes could care less about leftwing progressive Israelis and their causes.
Israeli
(4,159 posts)..... we should all give up and join the right side , eh shira ?
Did you know that Neve Gordon has his own web site ?
Give it a good read shira , you might just learn something tho I doubt it :
@
http://www.israelsoccupation.info/
As for "Left-wing Israeli academics, shunned at home "
........shunned by whom shira ?
I tell you what , why dont you read Neve Gordon's own words on the subject ....here at
http://www.isa-sociology.org/universities-in-crisis/?p=559
and I quote ...
shira
(30,109 posts)That's exactly what you're doing when you side with the forces of BDS. Yossi Gurvitz figured out those 1-state Rightists - maybe it's time you did too...
http://972mag.com/time-for-a-changing-of-the-guard/21616/
As the protest grew stronger, they grew ever more bitter, spending much of their time mocking it. This behaviour raises two questions: One, just what sort of a leftist spends so much energy on opposing a protest intended to bring about a social-democratic regime, which did much to bring together Jews and Palestinians, and the only protest in the last decade at least which presented to a crowd of several hundred thousand Jews Palestinian speakers. The second question is: Just what the hell happened to your sense of solidarity? Why cant you show some good will towards people who stood by your side in the West Bank, and consumed alongside you bulk quantities of CS gas?
The depressing answer is were not dealing with leftists, but rather with Palestinian right-wingers. They suffer from tunnel-vision: All they see is the occupation. As if there wasnt an Israel beyond it, as if people did not live and breath and love and die here, who had other issues on their mind. The never-ceasing demand from J14 to speak about the occupation, one begins to suspect, is intended for one thing only: Division of the protest movement. Then well be pure and just again. Admittedly, therell be only about a dozen of us, but ideological purity should conquer all.
You can't even keep your advocacy straight. I wish you knew what the hell your own movement was about. In the past, you've shown you oppose Rabin after saying you support him. Now here's Uri Avnery against BDS for reasons mentioned in the OP. You oppose him too...
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=222257
I have known and respected Neve Gordon for many years. Before becoming a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, he organized many demonstrations against the separation wall in the Jerusalem area, in which I, too, took part.
I am sorry that I cannot agree with him this time - neither about the similarity with South Africa nor about the efficacy of a boycott of Israel.
No one who entertains this hope can support the call for boycotting Israel. Those who call for a boycott act out of despair. And that is the root of the matter.
Israeli
(4,159 posts)..... in your dreams shira .
I know you would all love us to love each other ... sadly that ended on the night of November 4, 1995 ....it was a wake up call , and boy did we wake up.
There is nothing that splits us into two more than the cold bloody murder of Rabin .
You think we have forgotten and forgiven shira ?
Think again.
shira
(30,109 posts)There is the vile, extreme fascist Right...
Like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PLO.
The Neo-Nazis.
And BDS...
They hate the Left too, as well as Jews, Palestinian children, etc.
shira
(30,109 posts)Just wondering...
Because the International Left has turned not only against Israel's Right but also the core academic Israeli Left (including all the Neve Gordons who fight against the occupation and settlements).
This should come as no surprise to you, since they're against Israel's very existence and want it replaced by yet another failed totalitarian fascist Islamist theocratic state.
Israeli
(4,159 posts).....Angel Face
ref : http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1387543378/
Sugar-coated racism
OPED by Yariv Oppenheimer, Haaretz, Aug. 22, 2012
"Why don't you come spend Shabbat with us on our settlement, come to the synagogue and see for yourself that we don't have horns and there is no occupation?" I get such an invitation practically word for word every few months from settlers who wish to present the appearance of a normative, moral and virtuous community beyond the Green Line.
In the last week, the truth behind the polite invitations, the Shabbat challah loaves and the broad smiles of many of the settlers was revealed again, as they went on talking about Jewish morals, Zionism and values. In a single week we saw members of the radical right who serve as the parliamentary aides of a popular rightwing member of Knesset harass the granddaughter of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on her way out of a memorial service for her grandfather; we heard about a bus driver who refused to admit Palestinians who had undergone security inspections, and when forced by the police to take them, dropped them off in the middle of the road; we all saw the shocking sights of a Palestinian family being rescued from a burning taxi after it was firebombed; we saw dozens of Jewish teenagers, in public view in downtown Jerusalem, running and beating an Arab almost to death only because he was Arab. In the face of such an ugly wave of racism, the leadership of the Israeli right continues its worrisome practice of rolling its eyes, taking no responsibility, excusing and even supporting such actions.
The bus driver who dropped off Palestinian passengers in the middle of the territories received backing from his employers, while the Israeli regional councils in the territories run a campaign to pass a regulation forbidding Arabs from using the public transportation. After the lethal firebomb was thrown in Gush Etzion, the security forces refrained from raiding the settlement of Bat Ayin to which the tracks of the perpetrators led, and the slow progress of the investigation bears no resemblance to similar investigations when the victims on the highways are settlers.
( snip ..snip ...snip : read ...read ...read shira )
Therefore, next time a smiling settler invites me to his home and tells me of the wonders of coexistence and the values of Zionism and morals, I will ask him what exactly he does after mosque burnings, olive tree torchings, fire bombings, lynch attempts in Jerusalem, discrimination against Arab passengers on buses and other forms of racism against Arabs.
Source: http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/sugar-coated-racism
shira
(30,109 posts)...that have very little to do with the question(s) asked.
What's up with that?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Gurvitz's article is a long winded whine from 2 years ago, about the lack of support from the 'international left' for Israeli Jews (J14 protests) internal struggle for better economic conditions, particularly in the area of housing-Bibi's answer was to build more housing-in the West Bank for Israeli's and that was absolutely no surprise, in fact it was fully expected
Averney's article is almost from the summer of 2009, and in the end any opposition he had to BDS was based on the fear it would not get the support from the American government first and foremost that it needed to succeed or at least those were Avernay's feelings back then, but as has been pointed out to you previously things change
Now that BDS from a large American scholastic organization has become reality the panic mode style posting has become obvious
shira
(30,109 posts)...and proved 2 summers ago that they were racist posers against all Israelis (Jews), not just the Israeli Right.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)and that is/was the problem in fact you've attempted to capitalize on this before haven't you?
shira
(30,109 posts)Of course, that was the problem right there as the racist BDS movement is against cooperation and normalization b/w Jews and Arabs.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Roughly speaking, this is the faction that successfully led several thousand people out into the streets on leaderless marches mainly in Tel Avivs streets, without funding or speakers. It seems safe to say that it includes people from various backgrounds (though all are Jewish) who have undergone political radicalization over the past year by way of collective learning from the harsh social reality, and who have not found their place within the existing political system. Confrontations were more than once reported between this group and Hadash and Meretz activists who brought their party signs to demonstrations.
http://972mag.com/j14-activists-launch-new-political-party-radical-by-israeli-standards/53241/
Israeli
(4,159 posts)shoud read this :
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/07/meretz-boycot-settlement-goods.html#
shira
(30,109 posts)...is another story altogether. Your very own post-zionist Uri Avnery wrote how the former is more acceptable than the latter.
Israeli
(4,159 posts)nobody on the Israeli Left gives a flying fuck what you think .
shira
(30,109 posts)He's against BDS and only supports a narrow boycott on the settlements.
Show me where he supports a boycott on Israeli universities and post-zionists like Neve Gordon. Provide a link since that's your favorite type of response.
Israeli
(4,159 posts).....just who has been panicly posting
ref :...
Now that BDS from a large American scholastic organization has become reality the panic mode style posting has become obvious
shira
(30,109 posts)....are going to be hit hardest by an academic boycott. Is that what u guys want? Should Neve Gordon be calling out to the International community "please boycott me and my fellow leftists"?
It'd be nice to get an answer from you rather than an unrelated link.
King_David
(14,851 posts)Any chance at some time we could get @your@ opinion on anything ?
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Who caused this problem anyway? The left-wingers or the greedy war mongers?
shira
(30,109 posts)Whether they're called Israelis, Zionists, or Jews.
Neither Right or Left.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Just say the whole world is anti-semitic and be done with it.
shira
(30,109 posts)LeftishBrit
(41,210 posts)And sometimes the Israeli right-wingers most against academic boycotts of Israel are the most ready to conduct what is essentially a boycott of left-wing Israelis.
But I don't think you miss much by not getting a conversation with Galloway. The man is an idiot. The fact that he could get elected at all shows how badly our three main parties have failed the UK, especially poorer people and those in the North.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)i never gave him much credit for anything ...until the guy really surprised me. he went to egypt and tried to bring supplies to the Palestenians of gaza. Its a shame it never got more press......
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/6943462/Egyptian-guard-at-Gaza-border-killed-in-protest-over-Galloways-aid-convoy.html