From a correspondent in San Francisco:

I went and saw Ghada Karmi speak yesterday. She's doing a tour in parts of the Bay Area for her new book it seems. During the Q&A, one of the audience members asked what individuals like her could do. She suggested the BDS campaign (Boycott Divestment Sanctions), then had this to say about her own academic boycott effort in the UK:

"Even just the call to boycott has driven the Zionists insane. They've set up a whole website to fight us. ...It's fantastically effective."

Apparently she was talking about Engage. Engage was set up in 2005 centrally by David Hirsh, Jon Pike and Jane Ashworth - it was set up by people inside the UCU and outside to oppose the boycott campaign in particular and to oppose antisemitism in general. We just decided to do it. "Harry" from Harry's Place gave us a website (remember liberoblog.com?) Jon collected the 25 signatures necessary to force a Special Council in the AUT. But Karmi says in San Francisco, where she thinks nobody knows any better, that Engage was "set up by the Zionists". In truth it was set up by a few of us who were disgusted by Karmi and her plan to exclude Israelis from the global academic community. There was no plan and no conspiracy. There was just a few people who decided to do something.

The claim that because "the Zionists" don't like the boycott then therefore the boycott is effective is a common one. I guess it all depends on what the aim of the boycott is - is the aim to "drive the Zionists insane" or is the aim to help build a free and democratic Palestinian state?

Karmi also said

"I would like to see the day when Israel becomes a pariah state just like South Africa."

This got a round of applause.

For more on Ghada Karmi see flesh is grass and Engage.

Thanks to NA in SF