UK professors refuse “Israeli money” but merrily take Arab funds 
UK professors refuse “Israeli money” but merrily take Arab funds

The Israeli Dan David Foundation annually awards a prize of one million dollars to scientists, writers, musicians, thinkers, politicians. The British historian Catherine Hall, a feminist chosen for her research on the British empire, shared the prestigious Israeli Prize this year with two other scholars, the French Arlette Farge and Australian Inga Clendinnen.

The prize is named after philanthropist Dan David, it is administered by Tel Aviv University and has been awarded to former US Vice President Al Gore, former British prime minister Tony Blair, the city of Istanbul, the Warburg Library of London, theatrical talents such as Tom Stoppard and Peter Brook, novelists such as Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh, Muslims such as Goenawan Mohamad. Professor of History at University College London.

Catherine Hall, however, refused the prize, along with $300,000, because it is Israeli money and she had joined the boycott movement against the Jewish State.

Hall said she made the decision to refuse the award and boycott the ceremony “after much discussion with those who are deeply involved with the policy of Israel and Palestine”. The foundation said that Hall had accepted the prize with enthusiasm at first, then asked to remove her name.

And perhaps this anti-Israeli intellectual intoxication has made them blind and mute to the real violations committed on women’s bodies, those in the Islamic world.
Richard Seaford, emeritus professor of classical studies at the University of Exeter, said that “the repressive measures of the government of Israel have now irrevocably tarnished the glittering Israeli prizes”. It is the same Seaford who refused to write for Israeli academic journals. “Professor Seaford, I am the editor of Scripta Classica Israelica” wrote Daniela Dueck from Israel’s Bar Ilan University. “We would like to include in our volume a book review ... Would you be interested?”. Seaford answered: “I can not accept because I joined the academic boycott of Israel”.

That was in 2006 and now, the boycott of Israel has persuaded a famous feminist scholar to refuse $300,000. It is not the first time that famous feminists like Catherine Hall boycott the State of Israel. The National Women’s Studies Association has voted to boycott Israeli colleagues. And perhaps this anti-Israeli intellectual intoxication has made them blind and mute to the real violations committed on women’s bodies, those in the Islamic world.

But perhaps it has a connection with the fact that the Islamic world has invested lots of money in their professorships in Europe and it is not good to unnerve the generous Arab sheiks.

In Great Britain, “Islamic studies centers” have been set up in the major universities. A report by Anthony Glees, director of Brunel University’s Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, estimates that the Saudi rulers have spent 233 million pounds in these English universities. Including that University College London of Catherine Hall, which also has a campus in Qatar and has recently accepted a loan from Abu Dhabi.

This is the reason these English barons, who are shamefully boycotting the Israeli Jews, never raise the veil on abuses in the Islamic crescent.