Ruth King

I received the following letter from Professor William Firshein of Wesleyan University.

"The boycott by the Association of University Teachers in England was overturned.. I say big deal!...

An excruciating effort was mounted to reverse what should never have been considered in the first place except for the barely contained anti-Semitic views of those who first organized the boycott. It is just one more of the everlasting steps (a blip really) to delegitimize Israel if not by actual warfare -- which the Arabs have failed miserably to accomplish time after time -- then by what David Pryce Jones calls “psychological warfare" where the success has been palpable.

From the equating of Zionism with racism to the comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa, to perhaps the most despicable, the likening of Israel’s right of self defense by the IDF to Nazis committing genocide....it is a sickening manifestation of a growing acceptance by the governing bodies and rank and file of so many "righteous" groups including the International Red Cross, many members of the United Nations (did you hear that El Salvador has just named a prominent plaza in their capitol after Arafat?), the European Union, many Protestant churches, and of course, last but not least, faculty at many Universities ... that Israel has no right to exist.

I truly do not know how all this will end, but it sickens me that we have to continue to fight these calumnies.

Bill Firshein
Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
Wesleyan University
Middletown, Conn

I too would not pop the cork on the champagne. And it is important to recognize that some who fought the boycott were part of the problem. Look at the devious role of “Engage,” the British group of academics who protested the boycott but had a role in creating the very climate which brought the boycott about.

I have had an exchange with Professor David Hirsch, who heads “Engage.” When I remarked that even if the boycott were to be overturned, it would not obviate the fact that so many British academics are anti-Semitic, Professor Hirsh responded: “I think that most people who voted for the boycott did so because they didn't understand the issues properly. They reacted to the ‘Israel is apartheid, so boycott it’ argument because they wanted to ‘do something to help the Palestinians.’ There are anti-Semites behind the campaign, but not everybody who supported these bans were anti-Semites. Some were just ignorant -- and we are doing everything we can to change that.”

I challenged the notion that the boycott participants were not anti-Semites and remarked on the appalling ignorance of those teachers. This clearly annoyed Professor Hirsch and elicited an e-mail which he copied to several academics who had joined the debate on my side.

“Yes, many of them are teachers, some of them teach Math and biology... they have no special knowledge of Israel. Many of them, too, are administration staff, library workers etc. They didn't think they were acting to help the enemies of Israel: they thought they were acting to help innocent Palestinians who are living very difficult lives under Israeli occupation. Don't make allowances for anti-Semites—but do think clearly.”

Well that annoyed me, perhaps igniting a forme fruste of feminism, so I did a bit of homework on the organization named "Engage." I became suspicious when Hirsch wrote on April 22, 2005 about the infamous Ilan Pappe: “Pappe remains in his job, in spite of the fact that his views are extremely unpopular in Israeli society. Let us hope that the university continues to respect his tenure, as it is now doing.” Then, confirming my suspicions, Professor Hirsch sent out an e-mail describing “Engage.” Following are excerpts. (The entire text may be read on the organization’s website: www.liberoblog.com.)

“Engage opposes Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. We are in favor of the foundation of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel.

“Israel is not illegitimate in the sense that the white apartheid state in South Africa was. It is the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that is illegitimate, and the discrimination against Palestinians that is illegitimate, not the existence of Israel.

“Engage wants to bring together academics and cultural producers in solidarity against the occupation.

“Opposing the sometimes brutal actions of the Israeli government and army is not anti-Semitic. But, sometimes anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.

“Zionism is not racism. Zionism is Jewish nationalism and it is not fundamentally different from other forms of nationalism. Nationalism often leads to racism, but nationalism is not the same thing as racism. The Zionism is Racism (or Zionism is Apartheid) claim is problematic because it understands Jewish nationalism to be necessarily and incurably much worse than any other nationalism on the face of the earth.

“And Jewish nationalism has a plurality of traditions, some actively and consistently anti-racist, others shamefully racist and Islam-phobic, most somewhere in between.

So, here is what I wrote to Professor Hirsh.

Dear Sir:

You really ought to consider changing the name of your little group, ostensibly set up to protest the boycott. The title “Enable” is far more fitting. You burnish your credentials as a protester by indulging in the same anti-Israel claptrap that drives the boycott itself. The links on your site give you away. Among the more egregious are Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Friends of Bir Zeit University, Yesh Gvul, B’Tselem, Refuser Solidarity Network, and a host of groups that promote the rights of Israel’s enemies and even encourage soldiers to resist.

The “occupation” upsets you as does the “discrimination” against Palestinian Arabs. Not a peep from you about the poor Palestinian Jews whose daily life is tormented by fear of a terrorist act carried out by the people whose discomfort exercises you so much. It never seems to cross your mind to ask why the local Arabs have to pass checkpoints; why poll after poll discloses that Palestinian Arabs overwhelmingly support terrorism; why the “poor” Palestinian Arabs accept money to sacrifice their young in suicide missions; why the Palestinian Arabs are in a wretched state and who put them there.

Given your great compassion for Palestinian Arabs, why do you fail to mention that their lot under Israeli control was far better than in any Arab country including Jordan where a Hashemite rules over 82% of Mandated Palestine?

You claim that your organization wants to inform, but you promote anti-Israel disinformation instead. To have you lead an anti-boycott group is akin to a fox guarding the hen house.

You should read an article on the Israel Insider webpage “Plain, Old Jew Hatred.” The author David Meir Levi, excoriating the boycott, writes:

“…a growing number of academics and liberal leaders, erstwhile paragons of the pursuit for truth, working unfettered in the bastions of free speech, have adopted this newly revised edition of Jew-hatred as a cornerstone in their prejudiced fight for justice. These putative defenders of our social and political systems, which for centuries have been defined as having malice toward none and equal opportunity of access for all, have incorporated the new euphemisms of Jew-hatred into their publications, speeches, and classrooms...much to the bewilderment of many, and to the glee of a hate-driven few.

“And perhaps most odd of all, they have done so of their own free will, enthusiastically exploiting their faculty status and academic freedom to proffer anti-Israel propaganda as scholarship and anti-Zionist polemic as education. Their criminal misuse of their positions of trust among colleagues, students, and society at large, has contributed directly to the creation on many campuses of an atmosphere of hate and distrust toward Israel, Israelis, Jews, and anyone identifying with any of the above.”

How sad, Professor Hirsch, that this describes you as well as the boycotters. When the rising tide of European anti-Semitism starts to lap at your ankles, the anti-Semites you and your Jewish cohorts gratify with your anti-Israel statements will ignore you. Although you helped implement their agenda you will no longer be a “useful”….er…professor.

The truth is that you will have no one but yourselves to blame -- because of your inability to think clearly.

Yours truly,

Ruth