Is the British Academic Boycott Anti-Semitic?

Anthony Julius, the brilliant British jurist who defended Deborah Lipstadt in her libel trial (and who coined the phrase “Jews proud to be ashamed to be Jews” to describe Jewish anti-Semitism), has teamed with Alan Dershowitz to write “This Boycott is Not Just Wrong – It’s Anti-Semitic” in today’s London Times.  (The full-length version of the article is here). 

There is an edge of malice to [the British boycotters’] campaign.  Their desire to hurt, to punish, outstrips their ability even to identify with any precision their targets — all Israeli universities without exception?  All academics within those universities?  Israeli academics in non-Israeli universities?  They cannot say.  And so the question arises — does this malice have a name? To be blunt, is it anti-Semitic?

The academic boycott resonates with earlier boycotts of Jews, whether those of medieval Europe or the Third Reich.  The history of anti-Semitism is in part the history of boycotts of Jews.  Each boycott derives from a principle of exclusion: Jews and/or the Jewish State are to be excluded from public life, from the community of nations, because they are dangerous and malign. We see an essential continuity here, but even if we are wrong about this, the boycott has indeed been an essential tool of anti-Semites for at least a thousand years. And who but the crassest of individuals, those least sensitive to the burden of anti-Semitism’s history on Jews, would wish to impose precisely that sanction on the Jewish State today?

Second, it is predicated on the defamation of Jews.  The Jewish State, in pursuance of its racist ideology, is perceived as pure aggressor, and the Palestinians as pure victims.  The boycotters . . . are outraged by the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, but are untroubled (say) by the Islamic nature of Iran or of Saudi Arabia.  They regard Zionism as uniquely pernicious, rather than as merely another nationalism.  They are indifferent to Jewish suffering, while being sensitive to the suffering of nonJews.  They overstate, on every occasion, and beyond reason, any case that could be made against Israel’s actions, and wildly overstate the significance of the Israel/Palestine conflict — indeed, they put Jews at the centre of world affairs.

Longstanding anti-Semites now embrace “anti-Zionism” as a cover for their Jew-hatred.  This is because, in relation to Israel, the antiSemite finds a protected voice. The desire to destroy Jews has been reconfigured as the desire to destroy or dismantle the Jewish State.  Boycotters may have Jewish friends, they may be Jews themselves — but in supporting a boycott they have put themselves in anti-Semitism’s camp.

In the longer version of their article Julius and Dershowitz explicate in more detail their argument that the British academic boycott “resonates with earlier boycotts of Jews”:

– In the very first weeks of the third Reich, on April 1, 1933, Hitler ordered a boycott of Jewish shops, banks, offices and department stores. Signs were posted “Don’t Buy from Jews” and “The Jews Are Our Misfortune”. Uniformed Nazis, some armed with rifles, stationed themselves in front of Jewish business premises, and barred customers from entry. Cars circulated in the street broadcasting slogans condemning buying from Jews. The Nazi boycott was intended to isolate German Jews from their non-Jewish fellow citizens. . . .

– And in 1945, barely 12 years later, the Arab League initiated a boycott of Jewish Palestinian businesses. It prohibited Arab States from doing business both with “Zionists”, and with any third parties who themselves might be doing business with Zionists. The object was to isolate and weaken the Palestinian Jewish community. One year later, the ban was extended to prohibit contact with “anything Jewish” (as the Palestine Post reported, quoting a League announcement). This economic warfare continues to the present day. . . .

Each boycott derives from a principle of exclusion: Jews and/or the Jewish State, are to be excluded from public life, from the community of nations, because they are dangerous and malign. . . .