The Intifada Reaches The Ivory Tower:
European Scientists Are Calling For A Boycott Of Israel
By Tamara Traubman

   The first time that the international scientific community imposed a
   boycott on a state was during the apartheid regime in South Africa.
   The second time is being considered at present, and now the boycott is
   directed against Israel and its policy in the [Occupied] Territories.

   Several manifestos calling for the imposition of a boycott, on various
   levels, have been published in recent days by professors from abroad;
   a number of Israeli scientists have signed the manifestos, arousing a
   great deal of anger on Israeli campuses.

   In the United States, students are applying pressure on the
   universities, demanding that they stop supporting companies and
   foundations that cooperate with Israel. The initiative began with
   students from the University of California at Berkeley half a year
   ago, and recently it has spread to universities such as Princeton.

   Members of prestigious scientific bodies, such as the Norwegian
   Academy of Sciences, have condemned Israel's actions in the
   Territories, and criticized their Israeli colleagues for their
   indifference to the situation of Palestinian researchers, and the
   damage to academic institutions in the Palestinian Authority.
   According to Israeli diplomatic sources, steps to have Israel join
   several large European projects have been postponed until further
   notice - for example, accepting Israel as a member of a particle
   acceleration project at the CERN laboratory in Geneva. The contacts
   that began behind the scenes have been halted at this stage.

   The Israeli scientists, usually half asleep and holed up in their
   laboratories, organized counter-manifestos calling for the
   continuation of cooperation with Israel, and the Israel National
   Academy of Sciences and Humanities (the most important umbrella
   organization representing the scientific community in Israel) has
   appointed a committee that will be responsible for this activity.

   British Manifesto

   The first manifesto published abroad was initiated by a pair of
   British researchers, Professors Hilary and Steven Rose of Britain's
   Open University. The manifesto suggests that European research
   institutes stop treating Israel like a European country in their
   scientific relations with it, until Israel acts according to UN
   resolutions and opens serious peace negotiations with the
   Palestinians. (Israel enjoys the status of a European country in many
   European research programs.)

   The manifesto was signed by over 270 European scientists, including
   about 10 Israelis. Although it is the most moderate of the boycotts
   being formulated these days against Israel, the manifesto aroused a
   great deal of anger in the Israeli scientific community. Outstanding
   Israeli scientists such as Prof. Joshua Jortner, former president of
   the National Academy, sent letters of protest to The Guardian, in
   which the manifesto was published, and three researchers from the
   Hebrew University [HU], Dr. Eva Illouz and Dr. Aaron Ben Avot of the
   Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and Prof. Hillel Shoval from
   Environmental Studies, initiated a counter-manifesto that sharply
   condemns the British document.

   Dr. Illouz believes that in the present circumstances, boycotts will
   not achieve their aim, but will rather arouse animosity toward the
   European position. She says that they are in total contradiction to
   the principle of academic freedom - one of the basic principles of
   scientific ethics. The Israeli counter-manifesto was signed by about
   4,000 scientists from Israeli, the United States and European
   countries. Ben Avot says that "the signatories come from a wide array
   of opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ranging from
   members of `Professors for National Strength' to people who are
   usually identified with the left, such as Prof. Baruch Kimmerling."

   The signers of the British manifesto believe that the anger against
   them is exaggerated, and that most of those who oppose the manifesto,
   which is written as an implied suggestion, either didn't read it
   carefully or didn't understand its content. Many of them, like Prof.
   Eva Jablonka, of the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of
   Science in Tel Aviv University, the first to sign the manifesto,
   report that they received hate e-mail as a result of the manifesto.

  "I'm surprised that my colleagues don't read text," says Jablonka. "I
   received very emotional reactions, as though I am betraying them and
   personally working against them." According to her, "Israel is the
   only country in the Middle East that has the rights of a European
   country in the scientific community; the idea of the manifesto is that
   as long as Israel does not begin negotiations, a moratorium against
   its special privileges must be considered. None of the people who
   signed this manifesto are in favor of a sweeping academic boycott,
   canceling all relations; all the people I know who signed are people
   who care and want the State of Israel to survive, as an ethical
   country, as a country of peace."

   Last Wednesday, the board of directors of the organization for
   professors and teachers in higher education in England, decided
   unanimously to call for a more sweeping boycott. The decision calls on
   all the British institutions of higher education to weigh - with the
   goal of severing - any future academic connection with Israel. It
   insists that such relations should be resumed only after a full
   withdrawal of all the Israeli forces, the beginning of negotiations to
   implement UN resolutions, and the promise of full access for all
   Palestinians to institutions of higher learning.

   Mathematician Prof. Emmanuel Farjoun, who signed the British manifesto
   as well as a similar French one, and a manifesto of HU professors
   supporting the soldiers who refuse to serve in the Territories, agrees
   that the boycott is an extreme step. "Boycotts are the final step," he
   says, "when the situation is already very severe, like in South
   Africa, and here the situation is completely analogous, and moreover,
   here the Palestinians are not even citizens, and have been living for
   35 years without basic rights."

   Prof. Hagit Messer-Yaron, chief scientist at the Ministry of Science,
   Culture and Sport, and Carmel Vernia, outgoing chief scientist at the
   Ministry of Industry and Trade, believe that at this point,
   diplomatic-formal agreements with the European community to which
   Israeli is a signatory, are not in immediate danger. "In the field of
   R&D, Israel is in a strong position," says Vernia. "Nevertheless, my
   feeling is that our position has been eroded. My fear is that in the
   final analysis, that will have an effect on the formal plane as well."

   The Sixth Plan

   Israel has signed a huge program for cooperation with the European
   Union, called the Fifth Plan. In the context of this plan, the EU
   participates in the funding of research with practical applications.
   The countries who are members of the plan invest a sum of money that
   gives the scientists a right to participate in a kind of tender for
   research proposals. Israel has invested almost 155 million Euros in
   the plan, and in return received a similar sum as a research grant for
   Israeli scientists. The advantage of the program, therefore, is not
   financial, but rather scientific cooperation, diplomatic recognition,
   and integration into the European market.

   The Fifth Plan ends this year, and now the Sixth Plan is being
   formulated; several Israeli groups who are involved in the program
   said that signals sent by the Europeans testify to the fact that this
   time Israel will have a hard time joining it. Nevertheless, the
   assessment is that at the end, Israel will be allowed to join.

   The most obvious expression of the isolation of the Israeli scientific
   community is the refusal of researchers to come here, for reasons of
   personal security. Whereas in the past Israel held many international
   congresses, says Gideon Rivlin, the chair of Kenes International, the
   principal organizer of such congresses, today there are no longer any
   international congresses in Israel." He says that occasionally one can
   find a few scientists who are willing to risk their lives and come to
   Israel, but that can't be called an international congress. "Until
   2004," adds Rivlin, "all the congresses in Israel have been canceled."
 

   "Many of them avoid saying that that's the reason, but in personal
   conversations it turns out that this is the case," says Prof. Hermona
   Soreq, a molecular biologist from HU, who is involved in organizing
   many conferences. Brain researcher Prof. Idan Segev, also from HU,
   says that scientists tend to refuse to come not only to scientific
   congresses, but also for joint research projects as well.

   "At a conference abroad a short time ago, I met a friend with whom
    I've been working for many years; every year he comes to Israel for a
   few weeks to work with me," says Segev. "This year he told me openly,
   `I can't come, the moment I arrive, I am taking a political step.' For
   them it's like going to South Africa."

   A committee appointed by the Israel National Academy, which includes
   academy president Prof. Jacob Ziv, his deputy, and the director of the
   international department of the academy, are alarmed by what they
   define as mixing politics and science, and are worried about the
   possible damage to academic freedom. Ziv sees a threat to the academic
   freedom of the Israeli scientific community, and a violation of "the
   principle that one doesn't mix science and politics ...Why punish
   Israeli science, the researcher who works in the lab, for what is
   being done in the territories?" he asks.