[The following is a communication sent this morning to members of Keele University.]
Dear Colleagues
Last Friday the AUT adopted a policy of boycotting academics at two (perhaps three) Israeli universities, unless they are prepared to denounce the Israeli government. In spite of repeated requests I've been unable to get details about how this decision was arrived at from the Keele AUT reps who attended the Council meeting, or even information about how they voted, though I understand that in due course a report will be circulated.
However, information from AUT reps at other universities makes it clear that before the boycott motion was passed, only speeches in favour of it were allowed a hearing. The AUT's decision to boycott Israel, rather than those countries whose human rights failures outrank Israel's by orders of magnitude, such as China, Sudan, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Russia, Zimbabwe, Congo and many others, clearly demonstrates that what's driving the boycott policy isn't a concern for human rights but a concern to punish and delegitimize the Jewish state. There has been absolutely no suggestion by anyone at the AUT that any of the states mentioned above should be subject to boycott, and the spectacle of (some) British academics rushing to punish the lesser offender while being afflicted with a distressing case of blindness to the greater offenders is quite literally a sickening one. The policy of singling out Israel in this way for special punishment is part of a general demonising of Jewish nationalism, and indeed the proponents of the boycott explicitly regard Israel as an illegitimate state. All academic boycotts are threats to freedom of thought and speech, but a boycott based on such an unjustified selection is both disgraceful and, for Jewish academics, frightening in its discriminatory implications. Criticism of Israel need not of course be anti-Semitic; but boycotts aren't a form of criticism, they're a form of punishment, as is peculiarly evident when we consider the historical precedents for boycotts of Jews. Singling out Israel for such punishment while studiously ignoring far worse offenders, including states which wish to destroy Israel, is clearly discriminatory. I don't think that Jews should feel obliged to ignore or remain silent about the nature of this kind of discrimination, nor do I think it's wise of them to do so; hence this email.
I am resigning from the AUT forthwith. I'm appalled at being forced to leave the union of which I have been a member all my university working life, but I don't feel able to remain part of an organization which has publicly adopted an anti-Semitic policy. I hope that other members of the AUT, who object to the boycott but do not wish to resign, will also seek to get it reversed - from within - so that the Association may once again become an institution in which Jews can feel reasonably comfortable as members. Eve Garrard