Academic Boycotts, Civil Society, and Peace

March 18, 2009

Academic boycotts against Israeli universities have reared their heads again, especially vociferous and strident after the recent Gaza action. Some participants, especially from Europe, had withdrawn from this conference. Stanley Fish has written cogently about this misguided behavior by members of the academic community.

Eliezer Ya’ari, CEO of the New Israel Fund chaired the plenary session. The keynote speaker for the conference was Professor Jan Aart Scholte, an economist from Warwick University in England. His remarks were entitled “Local-Global Interfaces in Civil Society: Perils and Promises for Peace.” Professor Hagai Katz introduced the speaker and addressed the boycott head on, first by thanking the speaker for attending, and noting that boycotts among academics are not productive. Scholte, a fortyish, person of rather slight build was born in Holland and moved to England about 30 years ago. He prefaced his remarks by underscoring that citizens and civil society were not the state, so that attacking civil sector/third sector colleagues missed the mark. He did make a point of saying that he himself was disturbed by Israel’s “disproportionate” military action and that these recent actions by Israel were “regrettable.” He was troubled that the civil society organizations in Israel were, for the most part, silent during the Gaza operation, assuming that such organizations, by definition, are supposed to oppose military action. One wonders what exactly was disproportionate and whether Israel’s actions were the only regrettable ones, but that was not the subject of his illuminating talk.

After noting that the EU funds both sides of the peace movement to what result and wondering if the Palestinian Authority is analogous to the Jewish Agency, a civil organization, which, at the founding of the state, became many of the ministers of the new government of Israel, his remarks addressed four points. First, he provided his definition of “civil society” as the “political space where associations of citizens seek to influence the rules and norms of social power,” quite consistent with commonly used explanations. Then, he highlighted the many global/local links, how global organizations influence local and vice versa, underscoring, however, that there appeared to be little overlap and/or collaboration between civil society organizations in Israeli society and Palestinian society. For example, do the chambers of commerce, academic societies, domestic violence centers and on and on interact? They have shared interests independent of the nations in which they operate. Indeed there is little interaction. Third, and most important, there is nothing intrinsically motivating the global/local relationship toward peace, i.e., war is just as likely a result. Supra-territorial nationalism and religious dogmatism, both examples of intense global/local relationships, have provoked much death and destruction across the world. Finally, he noted that with all of these global forces at play, accountability has become of paramount concern, not only for civil society/nonprofit organizations, but in the world of commerce as well.

Dan Bitan, Co-Director of the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization (IPSO) was the respondent, but he spoke longer than Scholte. His comments covered two broad points. First, in what he termed the Holy Land Syndrome, civil society historically had been an instrument of colonialism and/or colonial competition was the instrument of civil society. Second, and rather elaborately, he traced the history of collaborations between Israelis and Palestinians after the PLO seemed to recognize the idea of two states at the close of the first intifada. After Oslo there was intense collaboration on the Peace Files, plans and recommendations for social, political, and economic development in the region. The second intifada brought a marked decline due to the PLO. The recent Gaza action by Israel has caused an even deeper freeze. He closed by referring to the “Obama Syndrome,” meaning everyone is waiting to see how he will proceed in the Middle East. Two questions, relevant to both speakers, are puzzling. First, while surely Israeli policy is sometimes misguided for many different reasons, there are vocal forces for alternative approaches to this conflict. Why do both speakers seem to imply that if only Israel would behave differently (if only Israel had not behaved regrettably, for example), civil society would then be able to tackle the many problems in the region? Second, and related, Scholte noted, but in a rather inconsequential way, that the term “peace” was not found in many civil organizations among the Palestinians. Why is that? Have there been demonstrations to halt the rocket attacks in the south? The fact that important questions were raised about the role of civil society and the prospects for peace is probably the only argument that need be made against academic boycotts