By now many people are aware that two Israeli scholars have been removed from positions in Britain not for any transgression they have committed but simply for being Israeli. The dismissals were intended as a statement of protest against Israel's policies in the Palestinian territories. That a boycott of Israelis could be organized with impunity in Europe only half a century after the boycott of Jewish businesses is at least newsworthy. Since I am one of the scholars so dismissed, I thought I would explain some things. One is that I'm very happy to be an Israeli. Indeed I owe my life to this fact.
My dismissal from the board of consulting editors of the British journal Translation Studies Abstracts had been imminent for some time. Although I never committed any crime, I had been fearing the bad news ever since my friend, colleague and former student, Miriam Shlesinger, was removed from the editorial board of the journal The Translator, also for being an Israeli. Two weeks after that, on June 8, I received my notification.
... One of the suggestions made in the e-mails that reached me was to retaliate by banning the periodicals and books published by St. Jerome. In full accordance with my principles, I feel strongly opposed to any such reaction. For me, a boycott is a boycott is a boycott -- even if it is just a counter-boycott. Anyone indulging in it will in fact be blending science and politics again, which is precisely what they wish to condemn in their protest.
Have I really refrained from academic boycotting myself? I'm afraid the answer is no: Some 20 years ago, I was offered an important post at Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg. You will recall that, in those days, it was contacts with that country that were severed, even though -- in the circles I move in, at least -- precautions were taken not to hurt individual academics. My reaction was to reject the invitation; a kind of personal boycott in its own way, no doubt, which didn't even have the slightest impact on the war against Apartheid. In fact, more than anything else, I may have been punishing myself, not the University, the government or, God forbid, the people of South Africa.
I cannot but think that Professor Baker [the Egyptian editor that dismissed Gideon] might have been doing something very similar; namely, punishing herself rather than Israeli academia, the Israeli government, the people of Israel, or even Ms. Shlesinger and myself as individuals. We have remained unchanged; she now has editorial boards that are smaller and weaker.
UPDATE: Guy Gavriel Kay asks, "It's 'the Jews' at work again, is it?"
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