Civitas

By a similar sort of unfortunate accident as that which led the Labour Party to portray Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin as flying pigs in an advertisement seeking to ridicule their party's spending plans, today also happens to be the birthday of Adolf Hitler.

By a similar and doubtless equally as innocuous a coincidence, the debate on the motion has been scheduled for this coming Friday afternoon, eve of the Jewish Sabbath the day before the commencement of the Jewish festival of Passover. The exquisite timing of the debate guaranteees no observant Jewish AUT members, who, it is reasonable to surmise, might otherwise have been likely to wish to take part in the debate so as to oppose the motion, will be able to do so.

The web-site of the AUT reveals those proposing the motion derived both their inspiration and wording for it from a campaign calling for such a boycott that has been orchestrated and organised by Birzeit Universiy. Part of the conference motion reads:

‘[AUT’s] Executive Council notes that nearly sixty of the most prominent academic, cultural and professional associations and trade unions in the Occupied West bank and Gaza… , [whose views are] thus highly representative of the views of major sectors of Palestinian civil society, have now called for an academic and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions.'

The motion also points out that the full text of their call for the boycott can be found on a website of Birzeit University's and obligingly provides a link to it. This link reveals their campaign has been orchestrated by a sociology lecturer there named, Lisa Taraki who is elsewhere described as 'Coordinator for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel Occupied Palestinian territories'.

The three Israeli universities whose boycott is being called for are the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Haifa University, and Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv. All are located within the so-called 'green line', and hence within Israel-proper as opposed to the so-called 'occupied territories'.

The natural inference from the title of the boycott's Palestinian Coordinator must be that those there like her who are calling for it must consider all Israel as occupied Palestinian territory, something their literastue fully confirms. Hence, one must infer, they will be satisfied with nothing less than Israel’s complete destruction as a Jewish state.

So much for Birzeit University’s claim to be promoting ‘pluralistic ideals and democratic values’, as well as for the EU’s faith in that university to promote human rights and the rule of law with the money it gave it.

One of the proposers of the AUT motion calling for the boycott is a lecturer in English at Birmingham University named Sue Blackwell. In a posting on her own website, Ms Blackwell explains why, although she is aware there are many other oppressive regimes throughout the world, she does not consider it unjust, or in any other way improper, for her be to singling out only Israel for sanctions for having allegedly violated them in her view.

She says: ‘I would say simply that two wrongs don’t make a right. The fact that there are other dreadful regimes in the world doesn’t make Israel any better.’

One day, I am sure, should she ever become aware of it, Ms Blackwell’s selectiveness will be fully appreciated by the two year old Pakistani girl whose family, the Guardian reports today, was ordered by a local village court to betroth her to the 40 year old man whom her uncle cuckolded as part of the penalty it saw fit to impose and to whom it ordered the girl be made to marry upon reaching the age of 14.

The local police officer is quoted as having said that, since it was a simple case of an arranged marriage, “no law has been broken”.

Despite Pakistani President Musharraf having claimed he would seek to curb such practices, a prominent Pakinstani lawyer and human rights activist, Hina Jilani, is reported to have said the Pakistani government "has not done one iota”.

It is, surely, interesting that, out of the hundreds of proposals submitted for debate at the AUT conference, among the very few to be chosen was that calling for the academic boycott of Israeli universities.

Of equal interest is the selectiveness of its proposers who chose to focus on what they claim are the ‘human rights’ abuses committed by Israeli universities to the exclusion of all others in the world.

Ms Blackwell denies she is antisemitic, as do the AUT, the Labour Party, the Palestinian Authority, and the EU.

What a glorious form of civil society the EU is in process of constructing in Europe and every elsewhere it is splashing its money around.