by Jonathan Joseph
The threatened boycott of Israeli academics led by the newly formed Universities and Colleges Union is a disgrace, and has evoked shock and disbelief around the world. Last week, the editor of this paper wrote lamenting the fact that Britain appears to be sleepwalking its way to an entrenched anti-Israeli stance.
Understandably, Jewish communities in Israel and America are beginning to assume that British Jews are under siege, and to worry whether we need rescuing. Fortunately, they need not be so anxious. The perception of England produced by the boycotters is as distorted as the image of Israel that they are trying to promulgate.
It is not the case that the majority of English academics has voted for the boycott. A handful of union representatives, who tend to be on the far left politically, and become union officials for the purpose of passing motions like this, have voted (158 to 99) to boycott Israeli academics. I have yet to meet an academic who doesn’t think that it is ridiculous or who intends to participate.
Our friends abroad will respond that the English academic should not allow himself to be represented by such people and they are doubtless right. But they must try to understand that the English in general are deeply uninterested in politics. Most union members pay their dues in the vague hope of improvement in salary or redundancy negotiations, and would run a mile rather than throw themselves into the world of left-wing infighting and posturing that is union politics.
Political apathy of this nature is hard to comprehend in Israel, where politics is a life and death matter. There are obvious disadvantages to this attitude, and it means governments get away with much that they shouldn’t, but it is part and parcel of a natural laziness, which has insulated England against extremist politics for centuries.
So while British academics have not rushed en masse to their union meetings to protest against the boycott (although a number have), they have shown every indication that they are going to have nothing to do with it. Although this traditional approach of inspired laziness may frustrate the anti-boycotters trying to clean up union politics, it has its attractions. The boycotters love fights, it makes them feel important, and gives them a sense of purpose. What really gets to them however, is being ignored by most of their colleagues.
The British government evidently realizes how the passing of the boycott motion brings the country into disrepute, and has condemned it in forthright terms. Meanwhile, the boycott, although reported, has actually hardly registered on the radar of the general public (outside the readership of the left wing Guardian). Among the British public, including academics, there is certainly prejudice against and great misconceptions about Israel (not least of the latter the conviction that Israel is about the size of Russia), and I don’t wish to brush that aside. But neither should it be believed that most British people, let alone most academics, support a boycott, are anti-Israel or are anti-Semitic.
A few American Jewish academics have announced in response that they will now boycott British academia. It is a concerning strategy. It may wake up some academics to the need to rein in their supposed representatives, but one absurdity is rarely improved upon by the addition of another. An argument that can be brought against the principle of an academic boycott is that it is a collective punishment, without regard to individual views or responsibility for the activities of which the boycotters disapprove. A boycott of British academics would be equally indiscriminate.
Of course the boycott is outrageous, and although largely symbolic, may seep into public consciousness and further influence public opinion against Israel. Those who are fighting vigorously to overturn it are quite right to do so. But it is not as grave as it immediately appears. By exaggerating its significance, we do the architects of the boycott motion the compliment of taking them too seriously.
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