Boycotting Israeli academia

Abstract

In recent years, a campaign run by the BDS movement to boycott and silence Israeli academics has gained some support worldwide. Academics choosing to take part in the boycott are often accused to be moved by a new form of anti-Semitism – an allegation they fervently deny. A recent case in Australia saw Jake Lynch, a professor at the University of Sydney, taken to court and accused of breaching Australia's Racial Discrimination Act for rejecting an application from an Israeli academic for a visiting professor position. In this paper, we want to analyse such situations from a philosophical and legal perspective. We will argue that apart from being anti-scientific and counterproductive, such boycotts are also unlawful and – indeed – anti-Semitic. Boycott supporters often replace a person’s nationality with a person’s “institutional affiliation” to avoid being accused of racism and discrimination. We argue that this terminological disguise does not succeed in hiding the fact that often such boycotts illegitimately discriminate against individual Jews.