Intense anger has erupted among academics after three major United States foundations pulled the plug on sponsorship of a conference to be held in Bellagio, Italy, after vigorous lobbying by pro-Israeli groups.
The conference, organised by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), was to have debated academic boycotts. Sponsors were the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation and Nathan Cummings Foundation. Three South African academics had been invited: Jonathan Hyslop, deputy director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research; Salim Vally, senior researcher at Wits University’s education policy unit; and Wits politics professor Shireen Hassim.
The AAUP opposes academic boycotts in principle. Last year’s vote by the British Association of University Teachers to boycott two Israeli universities for their apparent support of the occupation of Palestine sparked off intense debates about academic boycotts. The AAUP opposed the British association’s decision, which was later overturned.
The Bellagio conference this week was one outcome of those debates. But pro-Israeli groups immediately began lobbying against it. The US-based Anti-Defamation League issued a statement earlier this month urging the AAUP to postpone the conference.
The statement quoted the league’s director, Abraham Foxman, as saying: ”We were troubled to learn that eight of the 21 participants in this conference support the use of boycotts against the state of Israel. We support academic freedom, but one needs to proceed with caution when the views being included are far outside of the mainstream; or when the message involves anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial or questions Israel’s right to exist.”
At first, the AAUP resisted pressure. But, last Thursday, general secretary Roger Bowen announced that the conference had been postponed. Bowen said ”all three foundations believed our academic conference had been overly ‘politicised’. We concurred with this assessment reluctantly and after being told the Bellagio conference centre [owned by the Rockefeller Foundation] would not be made available to us.”
The AAUP was ”a target of relentless lobbying”, he said. ”The irony is that the most outspoken opponents of the conference subscribe to the AAUP’s unambiguous anti-boycott position. They professed anger that seven [sic] of the 21 invitees had gone on record favouring an academic boycott against Israeli universities and saw no reason for inviting them.”
Hyslop said it was ”shocking that the funders had pulled the plug — especially as the event was hardly weighted in favour of those supporting boycotts”. The presence of eight pro-boycotters was necessary ”because I believe you need two sides for a debate. But, apparently, some in the US don’t think so.”
He referred to an ”appalling McCarthyite atmosphere” in US academe. ”It is deeply offensive that anyone criticising Israel is labelled anti-Semitic … The whole political right in the US is committed to unequivocal support for Israel. Anything even vaguely critical [of Israel] comes under fire.”