Mick Hartley

There's a movement in American and European universities to cut ties with Israeli institutions over the war in Gaza. Maarten Boudry in Quillette:

What arguments are there for such a boycott? An open letter at Ghent University signed by more than 1500 students and staff, including dozens of professors (mainly from the humanities), denounces the stark “contrast” between the treatment of Israel and that of Russia in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, when many Western universities cut all ties with Russian universities. According to the signatories, Israel is currently committing a “genocide” in Gaza, and they demand that any cooperation with Israeli universities be suspended “as long as the current war continues.”

However, the “contrast” in reactions to both conflicts is perfectly defensible. Ukraine was brutally invaded by Russia without any prior provocation or military threat, simply because Putin imagines that Ukraine is a “fictional” nation that has no right to exist. If thousands of Ukrainian fighters had committed a gruesome massacre on Russian soil in January 2022, methodically slaughtering 1,200 innocent men, women, and children and taking another 250 hostages, only then would there be any semblance of similarity between both conflicts (as with many open letters from pro-Palestinian protestors, the letter completely ignores the terrorist attack of 7 October). It should also be noted that almost all Russian universities pledged their unequivocal support of the invasion of Ukraine, in a statement released by the Russian Union of Rectors and signed by more than 300 academic institutions.

As for the genocide charge, we believe it is as obscene as it is baseless. The tragic death of civilians as an unwanted side-effect of legitimate military objectives is completely different from the deliberate and methodical killing of civilians. It is perfectly reasonable to criticise Israel’s current military strategies and to question the sufficiency of measures taken to prevent civilian casualties, but it is absurd to pretend that the IDF is pursuing the opposite goal. The only genocidal party in this conflict is Hamas, which in its founding charter fantasises about the killing of the last Jew on earth.

In any event, a call for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire” and a boycott “as long as the war continues,” as the open letter demands, entails that no form of warfare against Hamas is deemed acceptable, which amounts to a de facto denial of Israel’s right to self-defence under the international law of war. No country would tolerate a terrorist group like Hamas at its border, least of all after a pogrom like that of 7 October.

Israel has the right to eliminate Hamas’s military capacity in Gaza, but unfortunately this terrorist entity has been digging hundreds of kilometres of reinforced tunnels for over 17 years (but not a single shelter for its civilian population). Hamas also has a long history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and deliberately firing rockets from hospitals, schools, UN buildings, mosques, and in the vicinity of humanitarian zones. All these reprehensible tactics are mainly aimed at getting as many “martyrs” as possible in front of cameras, in order to manipulate Western political opinion and turn it against Israel. Judging by the sentiments prevalent on many college campuses, Hamas’s cynical strategy has been a resounding success.

Boudry is looking for signatures to his open letter against the boycott.