The meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign at Sussex University this week was in some ways encouraging, and in other ways very worrying for opponents of the proposed boycott.

The meeting was billed as the academic boycott – the view from Palestine. The first thing that might strike you about this is – which view from Palestine? The view of Samir El Youssef? Of Sari Nusseibeh? Or of the call from ‘civil society’
– the NGOs who back a boycott. In fact, it was the view of Dr. Kassis, the President of Bir Zeit university. But the assumption of a monolithic Palestinian voice was striking.

Dr. Kassis had important things to say about the development of Palestinian universities and the daily restrictions placed on Palestinian academics and students. He outlined the development of Palestinian Universities out of high schools, such as the Bir Zeit School, through the Seventies and Eighties. He argued that this difficult development was in spite of the occupation, not assisted by it. He said that one serious problem was the repeated closure of Bir Zeit, and the repeated expulsion of faculty, including his predecessor as President. He reported the restrictions on travel, the checkpoints, the wall, the occupation in general and how these stopped students and faculty from getting to lectures, from studying, teaching, doing their research. He reported, particularly on the particular difficulties faced by Gazan students at Bir Zeit.

In the end, his call was for an end to the occupation, for positive support for Palestinian universities, and for pressure on the Israeli government to move in this direction. This was slightly different from what we were led to expect. The press release for the meeting said that


Well, he didn’t point to this fact: he didn’t mention the PACBI call. Of the academic boycott, he said that it was not possible for Palestinian academics to boycott Israel because they didn’t have the freedom to decide how to work and who to work with, in the first place. Of the academic boycott in Britain, he said; ‘I’m coming here into the middle of a debate … you need to help the Palestinians and put pressure on the government of Israel and the way you do it is up to you.’ Certainly, he called for pressure, certainly he condemned the occupation and the effects that it had on Palestinian academic life. But he did not endorse the call for an academic boycott of Israel, though he obviously had the chance, and was being encouraged to do this.

It would be wrong to make too much of this. Plenty of Palestinian academics do support the call for an academic boycott of Israel. But there’s disagreement, discussion, and I’ve no idea what Dr Kassis has to say in private. But on this public occasion he certainly did not endorse the AUT resolutions for a boycott.

Perhaps the organisers of the meeting saw this coming, because top of the bill was not Dr Kassis, but my colleague at the Open University, Stephen Rose. (I thought that a bit rude). Of course, he endorsed the boycott very clearly, with the usual half-baked analogies with South Africa, and comprehensive hostility to Israel. I asked him why he thought the boycott had been defeated in the AUT. He complained about the influence, and financial resources of the UJS, and their T-shirts on the day of the Special Council.

But then he announced his new position: "it doesn't actually matter whether or not we win a vote in the AUT – the boycott is growing though acts of individual academics, acts of individual departments, conscientious acts."

There’s quite a lot to say about this switch. First, a minor point: Perhaps the switch is not too surprising, since the PSC magazine shows a pretty cavalier approach to votes in the AUT. On page 8 of the current edition it is claimed that: "at the annual conference of the UK Association of University Teachers two motions were passed by a large majority calling for the boycott of Haifa … and of Bar-Ilan." But, unfortunately, "so much pressure was brought to bear that on 26 May an AUT Special Council was reconvened and rescinded the call for boycott."

Readers of Engage will know that this is false. The original votes were 98-94 in favour of the two boycotts, and narrowly for reference back of the proposal to boycott HUJ. They were counted because they were so close. The defeat of the boycott resolutions at the Special Council was predictable, because, at meetings of local branches of the AUT, not one meeting, not one branch, endorsed the boycotts of Haifa and Bar-Ilan. The Special Council vote was
overwhelming, and so it was not counted. The Special council was a bigger, more representative meeting that took its decisions after a full debate. So, while the anonymous author of the article in Palestine News seems to be happy to mislead her readers, we can be happy that the campaign led by Engage seems to have been solid and long lasting. Even in advance of the investigative commission, the moves to commit the AUT to a boycott of Israeli Universities look decisively defeated. That’s good.

But the new boycott campaign should be of serious concern to all academics, all trade unionists and anyone opposed to discrimination. Rose argues that the boycott will continue
through individual actions. On the website of Bricup (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine - click on the 'Advice' tag) is the following, sinister, invitation:


Let’s be clear: this is an endorsement of the sorts of actions of Mona Baker and Andrew Wilkie, and an explicit encouragement of those sorts of acts. But it is worse than that because it encourages people to take such action in secret. Rose might be for boycotting people who work for Israeli universities; someone else might be for boycotting Israelis; someone else might be for boycotting 'Zionists'; someone else might be for boycotting Jews. Because it is secret, there can be no public criteria and no public scrutiny. It represents a retreat by the boycotters into the mire of a furtive, grubby campaign of individual acts of anti-Semitic discrimination. It’s enough to make you want to come to the defence of the original boycott campaign in the AUT! That campaign was at least open, at least had some claim to be transparent and at least made some token effort to target 'institutions' not individuals,though this was never properly articulated. It sought some kind of democratic legitimacy, and was conceived of as some kind of
collective act.

The new boycott entirely undermines the claims that people were making some kind of public and principled stand, which they were prepared publicly to justify and explain.

Publicity – public accountability - is a key criterion of a just campaign but this furtiveness entirely undermines the claims that the boycott is morally justifiable. It is a campaign for discrimination on the basis of ationality, and so contravenes both the spirit and the letter of equal opportunities legislation, and the equal opportunities policies of individual universities, of the AUT and NATFHE. It is anti-democratic, anti-trade union, unaccountable, discriminatory, secretive and wrong.

What should be done? Many of us in Engage were uneasy or opposed to using the law to resolve the issue in the AUT. We argued that this was a matter for the membership to sort out, and to sort out by means of rational debate and votes, rather than in court. But now the gloves are off. Any academic who breaks the law to discriminate against Israelis in this way ought to be prosecuted. The AUT should have nothing to do with this 'policy' and it should not licence
these sorts of discriminatory acts – this is a million miles away from reasonable criticism, or reasonable political pressure on the Israeli government. Those organisations like FFIPP, which are equivocal about 'boycott' should clearly and publicly oppose this endorsement of Baker/Wilkie type discrimination. There is already some evidence that an informal low level boycott of Israel is in place.

Academics everywhere should watch out for these furtive acts of discrimination and expose them. The issues are simple. The AUT boycott did not stand. The 'individual boycott' will not stand.

Jon Pike,
Senior Lecturer,
Open University