PARSEME Management Committee meeting

8 September 2014, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Statement from Prof. Shuly Wintner

I wanted to talk to you about the reasons behind the cancelation of the meeting in Haifa.

I know that some of you expressed concerns about their personal safety, in spite of my efforts to reassure you that Haifa, and travel to Israel, were safe. I appreciate that many of you were concerned, but I can't help feeling that this is only a partial explanation for the overwhelming vote for relocating the meeting. I suspect that some of you were angry at Israel for its behavior in Gaza, and consciously or subconsciously wanted to "punish" it. Indeed, several messages on the MC mailing list expressed such feelings. I want to say something about such reactions. Let me call it the argument of the Academic Boycott.

I am not standing here as an official representative of the Israeli government. Those of you who know me personally know that my political views are very different from those of my government. Like all of you, perhaps more than most of you, I was devastated by the tragic events in Gaza. And still, I believe that an academic boycott is a detrimental measure that can only harm the cause its supporters are presumably trying to advocate.

An academic boycott is a slippery slope. It starts by refraining from going to Israel, then by refraining from inviting Israelis, then by excluding Israelis from program committees and editorial boards, then by boycotting collaboration with Israelis. I'm not making this up; all these measures were proposed in the past, and some of them are employed today in some areas of science. The result is the opposite of everything I believe science should stand for: openness, discussion, collaboration, cooperation, sharing. In a world of academic boycotts, scientific work becomes an instrument of political agendas. This, again, is something we've seen in the past, and I don't think any of us would like to go there.

I now want to touch upon a sensitive issue. One often hears the claim that boycotting Israeli academics applies pressure on the Israeli government, and thereby reduces violence and encourages stability; boycott in the service of attaining world peace. When asked why they picked Israel when there are so many other candidates for boycotting out there, the common answer is "one cannot fight all fronts; one has to choose one's battles". My question to you, then, is: if everyone is free to choose his or her own battles, how come so many of you choose mine? How come we do not hear of campaigns to academically boycott Russia over its annexation of Crimea, or Qatar over its funding of terrorist organizations, or China over its violation of human rights, or the US for being the world's greatest weapons exporter, for meddling with the internal affairs of sovereign countries, for launching wars against whichever country they deem rogue at any given time?

I believe I know the answer. Israel is singled out, time and again, especially in Europe and by Europeans, because of anti-semitism. I want to make my claim crystal clear. I am NOT talking about good old anti-semitism, about some ignorant farmer in a rural village who hates Jews even though he hasn't seen one in thirty years. The anti-semitism that I'm talking about is much more subtle and sub-conscious, and it's not a property of individuals but rather a statistical phenomenon. It's in the numbers: if so many intelligent, humanistic, liberal, good-meaning, Guardian-reading individuals decide to single out Israel as the world's worst evil, when there are so many other candidates to choose from, then the environment in which those people are nurtured is tainted with anti-semitism.

This is what I wanted to convey to you today. Yes, many of you were concerned about their personal safety. Yes, the conditions set by the COST administrators were harsh and unfair. But the knee-jerk reaction that causes so many Europeans to be angry with Israel, and to want to punish Israel, to educate its government via boycotting its academics, begs for some serious consideration. If you will spend five minutes pondering over it on your way back home tomorrow, then my 10 minutes here were worthwhile. 

Let me conclude with a personal note. I offered to organize the meeting in Haifa for two reasons. One is as a service to the community: for the same reason that I agreed to be the Action's Financial Rapporteur, that I presented my work at the Warsaw meeting, that I proposed a tutorial for the Prague training school. When I offer to do something for you and you say "no, thank you", I am not offended, I am relieved: less headache for me. The other reason was that I like to bring people to Israel, especially people who have never been there. I've done it several times, organizing several conferences and workshops that together brought to Israel hundreds of people. The typical reaction of first-time visitors is "it's not what I expected". I was hoping to give you an opportunity to witness first-hand the complexity of the situation in Israel. To take you to Haifa, where one quarter of the population is Arab, to the University of Haifa, where one quarter of students are Arab, to the Department of Computer Science, where 40% of the undergraduate students are Arab. To demonstrate to you exemplars of peaceful and fruitful co-existence. To take you on a tour exposing thousands of years of history, so that you can be impressed with the heavy burdens this history imposes on the inhabitants of Israel. By deciding to relocate the meeting you deprived me of this opportunity, and this is what I regret most.

Thank you for listening.