“This Is a Test of the Free World.” You Will Be Graded.

From The Debka File:

The 69,000-member National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) voted Monday, May 29 to boycott Israeli academics who refuse to condemn the their government’s “apartheid practices” towards the Palestinians.

The motion was carried at the union’s annual conference in the British town of Blackpool by 106 in favor and 71 against, with 21 abstentions in. It was termed “advisory policy.”

The union acted in response to a pressing demand by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which hailed the vote as a victory.

[…]

The decision calls on union members to consider if they should refuse to cooperate with Israeli academics or Israeli research journals that do not “disassociate themselves” from the policies described in the motion, namely “alleged “apartheid practices” including the construction of a wall between Israel and the West Bank.

[…]

After the motion was carried, the British government merely expressed regret at the boycott decision as “counterproductive.”

Haifa university president Aharon Ben-Zeev said his institution would continue to cooperate with colleagues and friends in Israel, Britain and around the world in an effort to defend the principle of academic freedom and fight the boycott.

Four NATFHE members: Derek Meyer of the University of Westminster, Leslie Bash of Anglia Ruskin University, Paul Langston of Aylesbury College, Stephen Soskin of Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, and 599 more academics worldwide accused the union of following the traditions of McCarthy in the US and the anti-Semitic purges in communist East Europe.

In a letter to The Guardian of May 27, this group of academics describes Israeli universities as “among the most open and anti-racist spaces in Israel” with large numbers of Arab students and teachers.

The Anti-Defense League’s director Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, described the union’s vote as a stunning setback for academic freedom.” To blacklist the only democratic country in the Middle East, {in the only state} where scholarship and debate are permitted to flourish is profoundly unjust…”

“Unjust” doesn’t begin to describe this action. It is so narrow-minded as to defy full comprehension. The hatred and projection behind this move calls to mind the beginnings of a new Kristallnacht .

Academia is sinking to new lows, so far beneath the moral horizon they are hard to even see anymore. Where is the outrage against the Middle East oligarchies who keep slaves? Where is the moral uprising against the way women and children are treated in Palestine? Where is the indignation about the morally depraved primers Palestinian children are taught to read, depicting the apes and pigs across the border? AND WHAT ABOUT HAMAS? Have too many conferences, reading unintelligible academese unglued the bunch of you? Is it the paper fumes that are responsible for this latest demonstration of moral stupidity by mental idjits? Have you no shame?

Oh, wait a minute here…compare the number of British Nobel Prize winners in science with the number of Jewish Nobel prize winners…hmmm. Do you think this might be a case of educational envy?

Britons: protect your children from the “teachers” of “higher education” currently loose on your small, precious island. Those teachers are trying to poison your children’s minds.

Queen Elizabeth, where are you??


By the way, the Debka story was third or fourth in the Google listing. Guess what was first? The Palestinian News. Now why do you suppose Google’s impartial and random algorithms did that? And why do you suppose Google, which likes to decorate its logo for all the holidays, managed to forget to put out the American flag for Memorial Day? Do you suppose they took the day off and just forgot? Me, too.


UPDATES:

1. From Israel National News:

In an appeal to the international community, NRP Knesset member Zevulun Orlev wrote to parliament members in Britain, France and Germany to demand they join with Israel in condemning the action. Orlev, chairman of the Knesset Science Committee, told his European counterparts, “This is a test of the free world. We expect you to condemn this anti-Semitic and racist decision and to help institutions of higher education in your countries tighten their cooperation with science, technology and higher education institutes in Israel.”

2. LGF reports that the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario has voted to boycott Israel. How can so many people hope to see a country obliterated? On the other hand, what level of moral reasoning can you expect from a union of public employees? Consider the source of this one.