British academic moonbats recently decided to declare "academic boycotts" against two Israeli universities, one in which I happen to be employed. In Israel, the "boycott" by the Lunabrits is being referred to as the "Plan of Stages". [The "Plan of Stages was always the PLO's official doctrine of destroying Israel piece by piece, until all the Jews would be in the sea and a new Islamofascist state would replace it on all its territory.]

The "boycotters" are motivated by hatred for Israel and Jews, not any desire for peace. They are the pseudo-academic equivalents of pogromchiki. The Moonbrits claim they are simply using the same tactic that was employed effectively against the apartheid regime in South Africa to bring it down. And that is why they are now using it against the only state in the Middle East that is not an apartheid country, against the only country in the Middle East in which academic freedom exists. Professor Mina Telcher, a leading mathematician, was denied the opportunity to put the Israelis' side of the story before the AUT ("the trade union and professional association for over 48,700 UK higher education professionals") ahead of the vote. A bit of pre-boycott boycotting.

British Jews and non-Jews outraged at the "boycotters" are organizing a "Boycott the Boycotters" campaign. The London Times denounced the Association of University Teachers in no uncertain terms: "Their actions are an echo of the Nazi ban on Jewish academics, and the general discrimination so common three generations ago." Columnist Joseph Farah condemned the AUT as anti-Semites. Adam Logan, a non-Jewish lecturer in pure mathematics at the University of Liverpool, says he will resign from the University of Liverpool if they attempt to enforce the boycott.

Not since 1930s Germany have Jews been the targets of an official boycott in a civilized country. Only recently, leaders of Britain's 10,000 Jewish students complained that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was being distributed on many campuses throughout Britain. Where are the boycotts of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, China and countless other countries who are truly limiting academic freedom?

But no doubt, the most incredible aspect of the affair is the unambiguous condemnation of the boycotters of Israeli universities by... (drumroll) ...a pro-terror Palestinian university!

Yes, Al-Quds University in Israeli-liberated eastern Jerusalem has come out against the British academic boycott of Israel. "We are informed by the principal that we should seek to win Israelis over to our side, not to win against them," said the spokesman for the university, which is headed by Dr. Sari Nusseibeh. Never mind that Nusseibeh is himself an anti-Israel, pro-terrorist extremist and his university is a bastion for suicide-bombers-in-training. "Therefore... we believe it is in our interest to build bridges, not walls; to reach out to the Israeli academic institutions, not to impose another restriction or dialogue-block on ourselves," the spokesman concluded.

Of course the real reason the Palestinian university opposes the British boycott of Israeli universities is that they realize what the British moonbats do not - that Israeli universities are bastions of the pro-Palestinian Israeli Left, where non-leftists are routinely subject to harassment. That does not interest the Brits, though. Israeli leftist academics are as much Untermenschen in their enlightened minds as are all other "Joos".

Israel's foreign ministry over the weekend following the vote accused the British Association of University Teachers of hypocrisy - saying Israel is the only Middle Eastern country with complete academic freedom - and urged British academics to distance themselves from the boycott. The Brits are now preparing McCarthyist blacklists of Israeli academics who fail to endorse Palestinian terror. All Israeli leftist moonbats who support the anti-Jewish Palestinian terror will be exempt from the boycott.

Meanwhile, one of Britain's foremost scholars from Oxford University, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, from The Middle East Centre at St. Antony's College, has issued his own condemnation of the AUT boycotters:

"Regarding the AUT recent decision to boycott Haifa University and Bar Ilan University in Israel, I am shocked to learn that, in addition to a call for boycott, the AUT is ready to offer a waiver to scholars on condition that they publicly state their willingness to conform to the political orthodoxy espoused by the academics who sponsored your motion. Oaths of political loyalty do not belong in academia. They belong to illiberal minds and repressive regimes. Based on this, the AUT's definition of academic freedom is the freedom to agree with its views only.

"Given the circumstances, I wish to express in no uncertain terms my unconditional and undivided solidarity with both universities and their faculties. I know many people, both at Haifa University and at Bar Ilan University, of different political persuasion and from different walks of life. The diversity of those faculties reflects the authentic spirit of academia. The AUT invitation to boycott them betrays that spirit because it advocates a uniformity of views, under pain of boycott. In solidarity with my colleagues and as a symbolic gesture to defend the spirit of a free academia, I wish to be added to the boycott blacklist. Please include me. I hope that other colleagues of all political persuasions will join me."


Caroline Glick writes in the Jerusalem Post:

"This decision [by the AUT] is an act of pure anti-Semitism. Israel is being singled out from all the countries in the world. There is no call to boycott Palestinian universities, which celebrate terrorist massacres, indoctrinate students to jihad and are used as recruiting grounds for terrorist organizations. There is no call to boycott Saudi Arabian universities, where gender apartheid and religious persecution are the explicit and rigidly followed norms. And of course, no one would think of boycotting Chinese universities for China's occupation of Tibet. Only the Jewish state and its research universities are unacceptable."