Incensed by the brutal ugliness of Israel’s apartheid policies against Palestinians, members of Britain’s University and College Union (UCU) have voted to boycott Israeli academic institutions.The vote, passed Wednesday, 30 May, by 158 in favor as opposed to 99 against, called for freezing European funding of Israeli academic institutions for their role and involvement in promoting apartheid and oppressing Palestinians who have been languishing under a sinister military occupation for forty years.
The sheer injustice of this occupation has deteriorated rapidly of late, with the construction of a gigantic concrete wall in the West Bank, which has effectively reduced Palestinian population centers to de-facto detention camps.
As expected, the shipyard dogs of Zionism, from California to Tel Aviv, including the heads of organized Jewish communities in Britain, have been protesting wildly the UCU decision as “unfair” and “hasty.”
Some of the more irate Zionists have shamelessly called the decision “unethical,” “unconscionable” and “immoral,” as if there is anything moral about the treatment meted out to these helpless Palestinians for wishing to be free from the shackles of Jewish racism.
I really don’t understand, nor, I suppose, do millions of honest peoples around the world, how these leaders could allow themselves to invoke notions of “morality” and “fairness” whenever Israel’s shameful policies and practices are criticized.
Their hypocrisy, mendacity and moral duplicity cry out to the seventh heaven.
This totally wanton attitude on the part of such apologists goes well beyond the pale of common sense and acceptable logic.
The truth of the matter is that supporters of apartheid in Israel have no more right to lecture British academics on the morality of boycotting the “Jewish” state than does a famous courtesan in lecturing critics on the virtues of chastity.
I say this because no other state under the sun embodies brutal racism, apartheid, murder and oppression against a constantly hounded and tormented people more than Israel does.
This week, the Shin Bet, Israel’s chief domestic intelligence agency, made it very clear that even legal and fully lawful activities questioning Israel’s apartheid policies and institutionalized racism (e.g. that Israel is a Jewish state, not a state of all its citizens) would be strongly suppressed.
In other words, non-Jewish citizens in Israel proper (let alone in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem) have no right even to use whatever legal loopholes there are to demand equality as citizens.
Needless to say, this is fascism, pure, brash and simple.
Today, Israel’s brutal policies are uglier and more criminal than ever. Israeli war planes, such as the formidable F-16s, which are designed to be used against powerful armies, are having a free season in Gaza, preying on civilian homes, clubs, businesses, public buildings, power stations, bridges, colleges, charities, streets, and even kindergartens.
Entire Palestinian families, including children, mothers and old men, are annihilated under the pretext that a family member took part in an election, the outcome of which Israel didn’t like.
Moreover, Israel, along with her nefarious guardian-ally, the US government, is pursuing a brazenly evil policy of starving millions of innocent people by denying them access to food and work.
And at the top of all of this, the Israeli army has been arresting thousands of political and community leaders throughout the West Bank, including Palestinian cabinet officials, lawmakers, mayors, doctors, teachers, college professors, business leaders, students, intellectuals, journalists and the religious leaders who make up the crème de la crème of Palestinian society.
This policy is obviously aimed at throwing the Palestinian community off-balance and depriving the Palestinian people of competent leaders who would stand in the face of Israel’s efforts to liquidate the enduring Palestinian cause.
What else explains the violent abduction of people like Nasseruddin al Shaer (a particularly moderate academic who advocates peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs)? Or, indeed, the rounding up, without charge or trial, of nearly all Islamic lawmakers, including Parliamentary Speaker Professor Aziz Deweik?
Whether the Zionists like it or not, the UCU decision to boycott Israel’s academia is a moral act of the highest order.
