Sunday, July 01, 2007

IT'S CRAZY

A recent oped article from Thomas L. Friedman exposes the hypocrisy of the British boycotters - A Boycott Built on Bias (access required or try here).

Friedman describes a ceremony held for this year's doctoral candidates at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. The ceremony coincided with news of Britain's University and College Union call on its members to consider a boycott of Israeli universities.

"Since the program listed everyone’s degrees and advisers, I looked them up. Rifat got his doctorate in law. His thesis was about International Taxation of Electronic Commerce. His adviser was Prof. D. Gliksberg. Nuha got her doctorate in biochemistry. Her adviser was Prof. R. Gabizon. Taleb had an asterisk by his name. So I looked at the bottom of the page. It said: Summa Cum Laude. His chemistry thesis was about Semiconductor-Metal Interfaces, and his adviser was Prof. U. Banin.

"These were Israeli Arab doctoral students many of them women and one of whom accepted her degree wearing a tight veil over her head. Funny she could receive her degree wearing a veil from the Hebrew University, but could not do so in France, where the veil is banned in public schools. Arab families cheered unabashedly when their sons and daughters received their Hebrew U. Ph.D. diplomas, just like the Jewish parents.

"How crazy is this, I thought. Israel’s premier university is giving Ph.D.s to Arab students, two of whom were from East Jerusalem i.e. the occupied territories supervised by Jewish Israeli professors, all while some far-left British academics are calling for a boycott of Israeli universities.".

Yes, it is crazy but, as Friedman points out, we're dealing with rank anti-Semitism and there has never been any logic behind this or any other sort of racism.

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