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An Academic Hijacking

[Wall Street Journal, 28Jun07] Alan M. Dershowitz - Many of the British academics who have been pushing the boycott of Israel are not advocates of the two-state solution, but of a one-state dissolution of Israel, with the resulting state being controlled by Hamas. If these union activists cared about the actual plight of the Palestinians, they would be supporting the Palestinian Authority in its efforts to make peace with Israel based on mutual compromise, rather than Hamas in its futile efforts to destroy Israel as well as the PA. As soon as the academic boycott against Israel was reported, I helped draft a simple petition in which signatories agreed to regard themselves as honorary Israeli academics for purposes of any boycott and "decline to participate in any activity from which Israeli academics are excluded." We have secured nearly 6,000 signatures, including those of 20 Nobel Prize winners, 14 university presidents as well as several heads of academic and professional societies. The British boycott appears to be backfiring. British academics are on notice that if they try to isolate Israeli academics, it is they - the British academics - who will end up being isolated from some of the world's most prominent academics and scientists.
2007-06-28 01:00:00
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