First published in Communist Student no.3

Should communists support the campaign for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions? Dave Isaacson discusses the issue

At the University and College Union’s inaugural conference on May 30 2007, a motion was passed committing the union to debate the arguments for and against an academic boycott of Israeli universities. As the UCU’s website states, “This does not mean an academic boycott is in place: it means that individual branches will debate the pros and cons of boycott” (http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2622). This issue, which has been debated in many unions, newspapers and blogs, is likely to become even more intense in the coming months.

What position should revolutionaries take in this debate? The question of raising solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people is of importance to the working class movement the world over. And while ending the occupation of Palestinian land is the most obviously immediate issue, there are a host of other social and democratic questions associated with this conflict, which revolutionaries must address. In the face of a viciously Zionist Israeli state, funded and armed to the teeth by the world’s sole superpower, the Palestinian people cannot hope to win their freedom by their own actions alone.

This is a question that demands regional, and global, answers. And, in all honesty, it is a situation which will never be fully resolved until the global hegemony of US imperialism is convincingly smashed. So this question cannot be separated from the class struggle and the battle for communism globally. This is no small task, but communists are well aware that we have many long and hard battles ahead of us. Watching from the sidelines is not even a consideration, for we know that correct theory and practice are intimately linked.

It must be stressed that the question of when and whether to use a boycott is, for communists, a tactical one. The central question that we must ask ourselves is: will this advance our struggle … the class struggle?

While we do not rule any particular tactic out a priori, we recognise that means and ends are intimately connected. Certain means, used in certain circumstances, are limited in the ends they can achieve. This means we cannot make any tactical decisions in isolation from a rigorous understanding of the concrete circumstances to which they are to be applied.

We cannot simply insist on a boycott of Israeli academic institutions solely based (as many do) on a sense of moral outrage at the role that much of Israeli academia undoubtedly plays in supporting and legitimising the oppression of the Palestinian people. Likewise we cannot simply rule out the boycott tactic on the (false) assumption that it is not a working class weapon.

Unfortunately, most people in the Palestinian solidarity movement seem to be calling for a blanket boycott of all Israeli academic institutions (not to mention the widespread sympathy for calls to boycott everything Israeli), and most use moralistic arguments to make this case. American academic Virginia Tilley, like many who propose a blanket boycott of Israeli academia, bases her call upon nothing more than disgust at the oppression of the Palestinian people and the role of Israeli academics in this. In her article, ‘On the academic boycott of Israel’, she begins by stating that, “Academics don’t like academic boycotts.” What is it then that drives her to advocate such a course of action?

Still, in very exceptional cases, an academic boycott comes onto our agenda. This happens when a country’s universities are recognised as central players in legitimising a regime that systematically inflicts massive human rights abuses on its own people and any pretence that the universities are independent fortresses of principled intellectual thought becomes too insulting to the human conscience. But since universities in many oppressive regimes fit those criteria, in practice a second condition is required: their faculties have the freedom to act differently (my emphasis – DI; http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6955.shtml).

Perhaps Virginia Tilley, now working as a senior researcher in Pretoria, is considering embarking on a hapless boycott of her fellow academics at home in the US, though I expect that even she realises that would be senseless. But this is exactly where the logic of her reasoning leads. Why don’t the moralistic pro-boycotters advocate the use of this tactic against US and British academia?

As I have stated above, communists base our tactical decisions on what we think will advance our struggle, not on what makes us feel good. There is a small bloc of progressive opinion within Israel that in various ways (many imperfect) support the extension of democratic rights for the Palestinians. There is also an important potential power in the Israeli working class which can (contrary to what many on the left claim) and must be won to fight for equal rights for the Palestinians. This will not be easy.

After all, Israel is a colonial power that for at least 20 years bought off the labour movement and turned it into a labour aristocracy, and it still has that mentality. The Israeli working class is not a normal working class: it is historically privileged, originating in a colonial, settler regime. It is a working class that is largely complicit in the oppression of the Palestinians – this cannot be ignored. On the other hand, its real interests are increasingly at odds with those of its Zionist ruling class. There is an interesting radio interview with an Israeli socialist and opponent of a blanket boycott (http://www.ourmedia.org/node/200837), which mentions the growing antagonisms between labour and capital in Israel. But, most importantly, as Marx famously said with regard to Ireland and the British, “A nation that oppresses another cannot itself be free”.

Israeli democratic and working class forces cannot be ignored when we consider the boycott tactic. Would a blanket boycott strengthen the hand of those fighting for Palestinian rights within Israel? I think not. On the other hand, a selective boycott of certain institutions, such as those based in the occupied territories and those that take blatantly unjust disciplinary action against students or staff, really could strengthen their hand. This is in fact similar to action that the Association of University Teachers (one of the UCU’s predecessors) approved in 2005, only for the decision to be reversed within a month.

An untargeted blanket boycott fails to take advantage of the tensions within Israeli society. There is a massive debate within Israel, for instance, around the issue of the College of Judea and Samaria (based in the occupied territories settlement of Ariel) and its unilateral restyling as the “Ariel University Centre of Samaria” (see http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/templer110807.html for more details). Arguments over this have gone right to the core of the Israeli cabinet. A targeted international boycott of institutions such as this would allow progressives within Israel much more space to raise the issue of Palestinian rights.