The UK Association of University Teachers has passed an academic boycott of two of Israel’s most prominent academic institutions: Haifa University and Bar Ilan University:
The Israeli Embassy in London released a statement condemning the boycott as a biased and adverse move which, far from promoting peace efforts, it ignores and sabotages progress made between the Israelis and Palestinians.
“The resolutions are as perverse in their content as in the way they were debated and adopted. The AUT ignored overwhelming academic and public rejection of the proposed motions.
“The fact that no AUT member who wanted to argue against this decision was allowed to speak, and the case for the Israeli universities was not presented to delegates, speaks volumes about the relevance and fairness of this debate,” the embassy statement read.
If three years at Concordia taught me something, it was that the notion that academia supports a free exchange of ideas is utter hogwash. The academic milieu is perhaps the most totalitarian, dictatorial, one-sided environment imaginable, where you either toe the party line or find yourself pounding the pavement.
But this goes beyond the pale. A mob of anti-Israel, politically-motivated professors decided that these top-quality, world-renowned Israeli universities are not acceptable to them, and here are some of the reasons why:
Pro-boycott activists were hopeful that their motions stood a better chance of being passed this year after they were turned down in 2003. One reason for their optimism, they said earlier this month, was that they have now received the unequivocal support of the Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities’ Teachers and Employees, a sister union of the British association. The Palestinian federation has recently released a statement endorsing the British call to boycott Israeli universities.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post earlier this month, Sue Blackwell, a Birmingham University lecturer and one of the leaders of the boycott proposal, told the Post that she “completely agreed” with comparisons between Israel and the former Apartheid regime in South Africa.
Universities are supposed to teach truth, not propaganda. But with the twisted “truths” currently being taught in Britain and in campuses across Europe and North America, it’s hard to imagine what will soon pass for “truth” among new graduates.
“If three years at Concordia taught me something, it was that the notion that academia supports a free exchange of ideas is utter hogwash. The academic milieu is perhaps the most totalitarian, dictatorial, one-sided environment imaginable, where you either toe the party line or find yourself pounding the pavement.”
As a graduate of the same institution, I concur.
The place operates according to the diktats of an entrenched leftist Nomenklatura.
This just reinforces my previous post that Israel is the second most human rights violater in the world and its universities are the most apaartheid in the world. If you don’t believe me just ask the British Professors. They must be right since clearly they’re smarter than everyone else.
Funny, I went to Concordia and sitting in some history and poli sci classes, I felt the propaganda being taught was pro-Israel, of the Eretz Israel variety. I was particularly stunned by the former chair of History’s (also a B’nai Brith leader) description of the Palestinians during an interview. One of the most racist rants I’ve ever heard.