U. Chicago defeats anti-Israel academic boycott one drop of water at a time
January 02, 2015
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When talking about the obsessive-compulsive haters of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement, it's easy to focus on opposing what they do.
In fact, this weekend at the American Historical Association, some BDS activist-professors are trying to get business meeting rules waived so they can introduce a biased and inaccurate anti-Israel resolution.
These efforts need to be opposed, but opposition is not the ultimate answer.
The answer to those who seek to demonize and deligitimize Israel through the BDS movement is to build even more academic and other relationships with Israel.
The University of Chicago is doing just that, cooperating wtih Ben Gurion University on water resource management for desert climates. This is not a political move, but shared scientific research on its own merits. It's only anti-Israel activists who turn such research to benefit all humanity into a political issue.
The Chicago Tribune reports For water's sake, Chicago researchers reach across the seas to Israel:
The Arava desert, a salty wasteland dotted with tufts of scrub, gets only about an inch of rain each year. And yet cows lazily low at dairy farms that collectively produce nearly 8 million gallons of milk annually. Orange bell peppers flourish in a long swath of greenhouses that skirts the Jordanian border. Kibbutzim with vineyards somehow manage to churn out shiraz and sauvignon blanc, unfazed by the desert sun. The clusters of farms and wineries in the Arava are a testament to Israel's acumen in water technology. One of the most parched places on earth has found a way to beat water woes once so severe that Israel's national mood rose and fell with the changing level of the Sea of Galilee, one of their most critical water sources. That expertise helps explain why the University of Chicago sought out Israel's Ben-Gurion University to help tackle one of the world's most worrisome problems — water scarcity....