Lawrence Summers: Academic boycott of Israel is “anti-Semitism in effect”
on December 13, 2013
15 Comments
Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard University, has commented on the proposed resolution by the American Studies Association to boycott Israeli academic organizations. The membership voting on the anti-Israel boycott resolution concludes on December 15.
For background on the proposed academic boycott and those anti-Israeli "academics" who worked for years on the resolution and then ambushed pro-Israel and/or pro-Academic Freedom members, see my prior posts:
- Good people opposing academic boycott of Israel
- Who is paying me?
- Does American Studies Association have guts to boycott Cornell too?
- Tenured radicals cannot be trusted with our academic freedom
- Maybe it’s time to reconsider the tax-exempt status of academic boycotters
- American Studies Association leadership recommends academic boycott of Israel
This particular academic boycott is much worse, it is much worse because the idea that of all the countries in the world that might be thought to have human rights abuses, that might be thought to have inappropriate foreign policies, that might be thought to be doing things wrong, the idea that there's only one that is worthy of boycott, and that is Israel, one of the very few countries whose neighbors regularly vow its annihilation, that that would be the one chosen, is I think beyond outrageous as a suggestion.... Charlie, I said some time ago with respect to a similar set of efforts, that I regarded them as being anti-Semitic in their effect if not necessarily in their intent. And I think that's the right thing to say about singling out Israel. If there was an academic boycott against a whole set of countries that stunted their populations in some way, I would oppose that because I think academic boycotts are abhorrent, but the choice of only Israel at a moment when Israel faces this kind of existential threat I think takes how wrong this is to a different level.
