Faculty Forum: Why an Academic Boycott of Israel is Wrong

Virtually everyone in academia has by now heard of the so-called boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. In recent years, academics intent on delegitimizing Israel have repeatedly made proposals to college and university governing bodies and to professional associations calling for academic boycotts of Israeli scholars. For example, members of the American Historical Association have been asked to vote on resolutions endorsing academic boycotts and denouncing Israeli policies toward Palestinian universities in Gaza and the West Bank; these resolutions have been resoundingly defeated.

The AAUP as a matter of principle has long opposed academic boycotts because, in the words of a 2005 statement by Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the organization rejects “proposals that curtail the freedom of teachers and researchers to engage in work with academic colleagues” and supports “the freest possible international movement of scholars and ideas.” There is good reason for this position: the core value of academic freedom is a direct casualty of academic boycotts.

An academic boycott of Israel would unfairly single out our Israeli academic colleagues (advocates of such a boycott rarely propose similar boycotts of other countries with alleged reprehensible policies). It would also deprive us of the knowledge and expertise of Israeli scholars, including those who are leaders in their fields and pioneers in some of the most sophisticated technologies in the world. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been quoted as saying that Israel is “at the cutting edge of world technology,” and examples of innovative technologies developed in Israel are numerous. The USB flash drive, the current universal standard for portable electronic storage, was developed in Israel, as were some of Intel’s seminal microprocessors. Cellular phones and instant messaging were also Israeli innovations. Wireless capsule endoscopy, the “Pillcam,” comes from Israel. Many of Israel’s other technological accomplishments are described in the 2009 book Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer.

A partial list of scholars whose expertise would be denied to us by a boycott would include Nobel laureates Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology, who clarified the mechanism of protein turnover in human and other eukaryotic cells; Nobel Laureate Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science, codiscoverer of the molecular structure of ribosomes, the organelle for manufacturing protein in all living cells; Moussa Youdim of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, who developed some of the first effective drugs for Parkinson’s disease; Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute of Science, who developed a DNA-based computing machine, the world’s smallest computer; Erez Braun of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, who developed nanowires and nanotubes for microscopic electrical applications; and Michel Revel of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a leader in research on Interferons, a potent natural antiviral defense mechanism.

Israeli academic institutions are scientific powerhouses, but a boycott would affect research in other fields as well. Even Israeli academics critical of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians would presumably be subject to the boycott. Take, for example, Benny Morris, a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, whose research uncovered evidence of some expulsions of Palestinians during Israel’s War of Independence in 1947–49. Morris later argued that the Palestinian refugee problem was a result of multiple factors, of which the expulsions were only a small part, but would BDS advocates want research on such topics to be subject to a boycott?

When reading the BDS resolution placed before the American Historical Association, I was reminded of the classic story of a boy who kills his parents and then asks the court for mercy because he’s an orphan. Undoubtedly, academics and other inhabitants of the West Bank suffer many indignities associated with Israeli control. But beyond complaining about those indignities, as the BDS movement does, it must be recognized that placing constraints on the free exchange of ideas is not the answer to the indignities suffered by Palestinian academics. To the contrary, impeding scholarly communication would only work against the long-term interests of peace in the region.

Emanuel Goldman is professor of microbiology, biochemistry, and molecular genetics at Rutgers University. Academe accepts submissions to this column. Write to [email protected] for guidelines. The opinions expressed in Faculty Forum are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the policies of the AAUP.