Posted on 07/17/2004 9:55:49 AM PDT by aculeus
UK academic Stephen Rose has renewed calls for an international academic boycott of Israeli universities at a conference to find solutions to Israeli-Palestinian hostilities.
Professor Rose, a founder of the international academic boycott campaign, read out a letter from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel at the opening session of a conference on solutions to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, held in Brussels.
The letter calls on the international academic community to refrain from any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions, including a suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies.
It says: "The Israeli academy has contributed, either directly or indirectly, to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying the military occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza."
The letter, which sparked an impromptu workshop to discuss the proposed boycott, has outraged some academics, who feel the focus of the debate has been derailed.
But Professor Rose, professor of biology at the Open University, referred to a number of Palestinians who were unable to attend the conference because they were not authorised to travel.
He said: "There can be no academic freedom without human rights. The pressure we in the European Union can exert has to come by means of this sort, both by seeking positive collaboration with the Palestinians and also by increasing the pressure on the Israeli state."
Oren Yiftachel of Ben Gurion University, whose work was boycotted last year when an article he wrote was rejected by the journal Political Geography, said that a boycott would be counterproductive because it would punish Israelis who opposed their government's policies.
Andre Faber, dean of social sciences at the University of Brussels, said that the university had voted against a proposal to exclude Israeli universities from EU scientific programmes because it was important to support continued contact between European, US, Israeli and Palestinian universities.
Supporting a boycott, Vidar Thorsteinsson of the University of Iceland, who is a member of the Iceland-Palestine Association, said that Israeli academics should view the proposed boycott as "an act of solidarity" with imprisoned Palestinian colleagues.
Miriam Shlesinger of Bar-Ilan University is the most high-profile Israeli academic to have been formally boycotted - Mona Baker of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology dismissed her from the editorial board of a translation journal. Dr Shlesinger said that anyone who thought an academic boycott would change Israeli policies was "incredibly short sighted".
let the idiots boycott israel's academics. it's a perfect 'shoot yourself in the foot" mentality. some of the world's most brilliant academicians are located at israeli universities (and we can't forget incredible medical breakthroughs)..
it's becoming difficult for me to maintain any sort of patience with the rest of the world.
"The Israeli academy has contributed, either directly or indirectly, to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying the military occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza"
...because the Pali's are murdering them you sicko socialist elite puke.
Please, stage your little boycott - the rest of America needs to see your true colours.
The article starts with the phrase "finding solutions". Looks like he is looking for a new final solution. It is very disturbing that Jew hating terrorist lovers are defined in the media as peace activists or somehow given much more credit than they deserve.
Spot on. Rose is a notorious Marxie.
Given the Palestinians' terrorism, this is so disgustingly one-sided and biased!
Rose was part of a group including Richard Lewonotin who tried to merge the "new" Marxism with Darwinian theory. Unlike Lysenko, they weren't recognized for perpetuating pseudoscience, but their influence has been just as damaging, both to biology itself, and to the reputation and understanding of evolution among lay people.
I know. I know. I even read "Not in Our Genes" by these scumbags.
That book is a disgrace, a collection of ad homneim comments against some of the most important scientists of our time, interspersed with attempts to justify leftist dogma with biology. It was written more out of jealousy and spite than an attempt to provoke serious inquiries into sociobiology.
And in what field does that professor work (or pretends to)? How important is the field, and how important are Israeli contributions to it?
Which translates into: is there any loss from these theatrics, how great would the loss be, and to whom?
He's a marxist biologist.
We should all be grateful that Krackpot Karl said nothing about physics, chemistry, etc.
Stephen Rose has renewed calls for an international academic boycott of Israeli universities... read out a letter from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel...IOW, this Jew-hater doesn't boycott the Arab mass-murderers, only their victims. Time to boycott the so-called Open University.
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
seeking positive collaboration with the PalestiniansExhibit A.
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
Hmmmm.... didn't a peaceful Palestinian blow himself up and some students, too, in the cafeteria of an Israeli University a couple of years ago? Is this "boycott" just another green light signal to attack universities again?
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