In 2005 the organisations of Palestinian civil society launched a call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) to be mobilised against Israel. Academic boycott of Israel’s academic and cultural institutions is a key element of that call.
In 2014 Israel’s attack on Gaza killed thousands of Palestinians. One response to that outrage was the Commitment by UK Scholars not to cooperate with Israeli academic institutions. Over seven hundred academics then signed up to this Commitment.
Since then bloody assaults have followed one after another. The Israeli government calls this ‘mowing the lawn’. And following the installation of an Israeli government with overtly fascist ministers in December 2022 the daily tally of Palestinians deaths – at the hands of settlers and of rampaging mobs as well as the IDF – has reached unprecedented levels.
Astonishingly the UK government has chosen this time to launch its new bill* whose aim, it says, is “to prevent public bodies from being influenced by political or moral disapproval of foreign states when taking certain economic decisions”. Those public bodies include universities, local authorities and their pension funds.
* Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill
This description is wholly misleading: the bill’s sole target is the BDS movement focussed on Israel. (What gives the game away is that while the bill allows for the possibility of derogations from its injunction, it specifies Israel as the one country for which no derogations will be permitted.) And the Bill goes further. It even makes it illegal for any organisational representative to “publish a statement indicating….[that they] would intend to act in such a way were it lawful to do so”. This is a bill, equipped with a gagging clause, that is expressly targeted against actions in solidarity with the Palestinians.
We are now asking you, if you are a UK academic, whether currently employed or not, to show your opposition to this grotesque legislation by
- making this commitment; and
- contacting your networks and your academic and teaching friends, your work colleagues and your associates, to sign too.
The Commitment is motivated by deep concern for Palestinians, including Palestinian academics, struggling to sustain a semblance of normal life and professional practice in the intractably difficult circumstances of occupation. These conditions include the denial of basic human rights, Israeli attempts to smother Palestinian universities with a network of restrictions on internal movement and on entry and exit permits, on the acquisition of equipment, etc.
Academics have a particular moral and practical power which can help shift the dynamics at work in Israel’s relationship with the outside world. We can strengthen moves towards equality, freedom and justice for Palestinians. We surely have a duty to offer that support.
The Commitment does not commit any of us to severing contacts with individual Israeli academics. In accordance with the appeal from Palestinian civil society, it exclusively targets Israeli institutions.
To read the original statement: click here
