A few months ago, a group of leftist European members of the British academia decided to launch a cultural and scientific boycott against Israel. I have received an email from Michael Vanyukov from the University of Pittsburgh who published his exchange of messages with members of the British boycott team.

Why is the anti-Israeli sentiment so popular in Europe? Of course, European politicians pressing President Bush to restrain Israel may be taking into account that their electorate is much more Muslim than Jewish. They would not do it, however, if the rest of the voting population did not support their pro-Arab stance, and it is not politicians who write boycott petitions and come to Israel now to defend “Palestinian rights.” Why Europe, which has tried and failed to appease Hitler by betraying Czechoslovakia and largely helped him to annihilate European Jewry, makes the same mistake by trying now to appease the horrific Islamic regimes and terrorist gangs supported by them? It is hard to imagine that Europe can still think that appeasing a murderer can earn protection from him. There is another likely reason for this irrational behavior—an irrational reason. Some Europeans, including, regrettably, intellectuals, have finally found a way to both legitimize their deep-seated antisemitism and exculpate themselves—by wrapping antisemitism in the comme il faut cloth of their “fight for the rights of Palestinians.”

Michael makes some excellent points, so be sure to also check out his website at http://www.pitt.edu/~mmv/israel.htm.

I copy the full text of his first letter to the boycott team below.

Against boycotting Israel: Dispute with Steven Rose
Israel on my mind
http://www.pitt.edu/~mmv/israel.htm

Some European academics have called for a cultural and scientific boycott of Israel. One of the boycott petitions, calling for a MORATORIUM on scientific contacts with the Jewish state, was instigated by Dr. Steven Rose and published in The Guardian. Its full text can be found at http://euroisrael.huji.ac.il/original.html. I sent a letter condemning this moratorium to all signatories of that petition whose email addresses were included in the list published on the same website, and received similarly sounding replies from Drs. Rose and Blakemore, another member of the boycott team. I have decided to publish my exchange with Dr. Rose because it clarifies the opposing views and their origins. It follows below in chronological order.

Michael Vanyukov wrote:

"The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the anti-Semite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!" - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Discovering a European-supported petition for a boycott of academic ties with Israel to promote “many peace plans” (http://euroisrael.huji.ac.il/original.html), I could not help but remember the Western “peaceniks” of the 1970-80’s who demanded of their governments to stop arming against the threat of communism. When a delegation of these leftists came for a visit to the Soviet Union (my country of origin) during the notorious period of “détente,” to embrace those they wanted to live in peace with, they were arrested and deported after an attempt to organize a pro-peace demonstration in Moscow. That must have been a good lesson in the effects of moral equivalence. Just as peace movement in the West was helpful only to the Soviets and supported by the KGB, today’s peaceniks are helping terrorists to achieve their strategic goals. Forcing Israel to stop its fight against terrorism—with no guaranty of the end of terror—would again serve only the terrorist aggressor.

Why is the anti-Israeli sentiment so popular in Europe? Of course, European politicians pressing President Bush to restrain Israel may be taking into account that their electorate is much more Muslim than Jewish. They would not do it, however, if the rest of the voting population did not support their pro-Arab stance, and it is not politicians who write boycott petitions and come to Israel now to defend “Palestinian rights.” Why Europe, which has tried and failed to appease Hitler by betraying Czechoslovakia and largely helped him to annihilate European Jewry, makes the same mistake by trying now to appease the horrific Islamic regimes and terrorist gangs supported by them? It is hard to imagine that Europe can still think that appeasing a murderer can earn protection from him. There is another likely reason for this irrational behavior—an irrational reason. Some Europeans, including, regrettably, intellectuals, have finally found a way to both legitimize their deep-seated antisemitism and exculpate themselves—by wrapping antisemitism in the comme il faut cloth of their “fight for the rights of Palestinians.”

It comes clear from the text of the petition. Its authors call “odd” the situation when Israel is treated as a European state in respect to scientific funding and contracts while no other state in the region is so regarded. Which other states there would the petitioners consider eligible for such treatment—whether from the scientific achievement or accountability viewpoints? This parenthetically introduced rationale for the moratorium on all support of science in Israel is telling because it clearly has nothing to do with its purported causes. Obviously, such moratorium would cover scientists regardless of their political convictions and, as such, is a collective punishment solely based on nationality. Taking into account the international character of science, it would also cover those who collaborate with Israeli scientists and depend on results obtained in that research. One wonders how would the moratorium treat Israeli scientists who temporarily or permanently work outside of Israel, non-Israeli scientists who collaborate with Israelis, or those scientists who openly support Israel? The proposed moratorium clearly smacks of the “Jewish science” label used first by the Nazis and then by Stalin’s inquisitors. Since science benefits all humans, the moratorium, while gaining no political reward for Palestinian Arabs, has nothing to do with humanitarian causes allegedly supported by its drafters and has much to do with Jew-baiting.

This is why these humanitarians do not care that those they call “Palestinians” are in their majority brain-washed descendants of recent in-migrants to the Land of Israel, who came from surrounding Arab countries in the end of XIX-XX century on the heels of Jewish repatriation that transformed the millennia-long desolation of Palestine and created jobs for Arabs. These human rights activists call Jews living in Hebron “settlers” and cite Arab majority as the reason for calling the lands “Arab,” whereas the reason for that majority is that Jews who lived in those lands were subjected to pogroms instigated by Arafat’s uncle and a personal friend of Hitler’s Amin al-Husseini, mass-murdered, evicted, and kept from entering Palestine by the British (just before and at the time of the greatest genocide in history). These European peace-lovers know and are comfortable with the knowledge that the only peace satisfactory for Arafat and the Arab world is where Jews do not fight because there is no more Israel and they are dead—the same way the fathers and grandfathers of these Europeans were undisturbed by the trains leaving their cities for Treblinka.

For the rest of this story, check http://www.pitt.edu/~mmv/israel.htm.

Posted by David Melle
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