Comments about PACBI is rotten - Mira Vogel :
Zkharya posted on June 23, 2008 at 12:56:54 PM
I hope the anti-boycott legal experts peruse this.
James Mendelsohn posted on June 23, 2008 at 03:25:24 PM
great post Mira (though NB some of the links don't seem to work)
Mira posted on June 23, 2008 at 10:16:09 PM
Sorry about that. They do now, I hope.
Rebecca posted on June 24, 2008 at 03:23:35 AMThank you for posting this. I just took a look at the PACBI webpage, and did see that they have a listing of their advisory board. The members are Abdel Jawad Saleh, Carmela Armanious, Gabi Baramki, George Giacaman, Ibrahim Dakkak, Jaqueline Sfeir, Jamil Hilal, and Samia Khoury. This is on the webpage - http://www.pacbi.org/about.htm. I didn't find any of the pages could not be accessed by me (from the U.S.)
Their politics really are quite vile - doing their best to shut down any contacts with Israelis working for peace. I found this sentence particularly egregious - "These calls recognize that Israeli academic institutions (mostly state controlled) and the vast majority of Israeli intellectuals and academics have either contributed directly to the Israeli occupation or at the very least have been complicit through their silence." Do these people know any Israeli academics? They may be teaching at public universities, but that doesn't stop a great many Israeli academics from working to oppose the occupation.
It also strikes me as strange that they should be calling for people who are not Palestinians to be "patriotic" about Palestine. Supportive of Palestine, I can understand, but this call for other people to be patriotic is very odd.
Their politics really are quite vile - doing their best to shut down any contacts with Israelis working for peace. I found this sentence particularly egregious - "These calls recognize that Israeli academic institutions (mostly state controlled) and the vast majority of Israeli intellectuals and academics have either contributed directly to the Israeli occupation or at the very least have been complicit through their silence." Do these people know any Israeli academics? They may be teaching at public universities, but that doesn't stop a great many Israeli academics from working to oppose the occupation.
It also strikes me as strange that they should be calling for people who are not Palestinians to be "patriotic" about Palestine. Supportive of Palestine, I can understand, but this call for other people to be patriotic is very odd.
Mira posted on June 24, 2008 at 07:20:56 PM
Thanks Rebecca.
If you click the 'About' link on the front page it leads nowhere (http:///). The front page is the important bit - if that link's dead, then many people will assume that there's no About Us page.
Yeah, that complicity bit is one of the arguments used to excuse harming the interests of Israeli academics in return for no gains for Palestinians. Punishment, that's called. Why is it only Israelis these people want UCU to punish?
PACBI isn't calling for non-Palestinians to be patriotic, but that is the nearest they come to guidance for non-Palestinians who boycott on their behalf.
Close this windowIf you click the 'About' link on the front page it leads nowhere (http:///). The front page is the important bit - if that link's dead, then many people will assume that there's no About Us page.
Yeah, that complicity bit is one of the arguments used to excuse harming the interests of Israeli academics in return for no gains for Palestinians. Punishment, that's called. Why is it only Israelis these people want UCU to punish?
PACBI isn't calling for non-Palestinians to be patriotic, but that is the nearest they come to guidance for non-Palestinians who boycott on their behalf.