I was hoping that by now you would have attempted to answer the question I put to you a couple of days ago.

The questions seem to be quite essential to your position.

My understanding is that it is NOT only you. This is a typical complaint about that particular website.

While it is admittedly impossible for us to verify to what degree censorship takes place on other websites, rest assured that we at Galus do not have such a policy.

I’m not sure but I think Lynch was suggesting that he wasn’t oblivious to human rights abuses in Iraq etc while boycotting S Africa which indicates that he was concerned.

Anyway, to respond to your point about why they should have been concerned – simply because if you have a respect for human rights it should be applied to all people, not selectively. If you are going to take a moral/ethical stand then you need to apply it fairly and equitably.

Human rights activism shouldn’t be like a candy store – people picking their personal favourites and ignoring the ones they don’t like. Nor should the argument of not being able to address all issues be used – what criteria is used (which is moral/ethicial) to then determine who gets priority?

Israel wouldn’t fit any reasonable criteria alone which merits it solely being boycotted – their crimes are not the most egregious, they are not the only democracy committing crimes nor is an argument of economic effect/priority sustainable.

That being said, I would suggest you consider Lynch’s suggestion that “it might work” in the case of Israel. What criteria is being used to judge why it might work in the case of Israel and not in other cases?

You see Lynch talk about immunity for crimes leading to repetition etc. But you don’t see him talk about real practical immunity for international crimes eg. held by those who have veto power in the UNSC.

I haven’t seen him propose an academic boycott of say the US, the UK (his own country incidentally), France, Russia or China despite these countries all committing crimes that far outweight those of Israel. Why?

I suspect that such a proposal would never be made because academics know the repercussions of such a step – they would suffer significant retaliation which would impact on their career and damage (possibly irreparably) their credibility.

This to me is where the hypocrisy is truly realised.

That said, the academic boycott of Israel is despicable hypocrisy at its very lowest. If you want to boycott Israel, go without something that you don’t want. The first things to get boycotted are always the arts and academia. This is because the average boycotter is too lazy to appreciate foreign films and to stupid to engage with ideas.

There is a long list of Israeli-made products that you can let yourself go without; I advise you to find it and follow it. Stay out of the universities, and let those of us who know how to learn do so.

Since you have admitted that your boycott is one of expediency, rather than principle, I have a couple of questions for you.

1) What evidence do you have that an academic boycott will lead to a peaceful resolution in Middle East? It seems the onus is on the boycotter to demonstrate this, given that there is an admission that boycott is driven by expedient motives.

2) Exactly how expedient are you? If an Israeli university were to develop a vaccine to Malaria, would you recommend that people in Malaria infested parts of the world boycott this vaccine? If an Israeli university were to develop a revolutionary cure for cancer that eclipsed all existing treatments, would you recommend friends and family members boycott it? How would you justify your decision?

I’ll let him down gently, then. He may be amazed to learn that, when I was going around, persuading people to boycott South Africa in the 1980s, I was not wholly oblivious to the human rights abuses being endured by the people of Iraq, El Salvador and many others.

In the words of Naomi Klein, boycott is not a dogma: it’s a tactic. The reason for trying it on Israel is that it might work, which is why Danby and his ilk are getting so uptight about it.

Israel presently enjoys impunity for its crimes, which incentivises repetition. End the impunity through BDS and it becomes clear that carrying on the brutal and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory is not in Israel’s interests. That would be a first.