# 43 – AUT & Pappe

April 28, 2005

Greetings –

We’re all busy. I’m far too busy to write this – and you’re all far too busy to read it. So…

As I may have mentioned before, from time to time I send e-mails out, trying to give my view of Israel. I try to be objective, especially considering how often I can view the country from outside. It sometimes concerns politics, but I also want to show that there’s a normal country going on here, with shopping, parties, tourists and hi-tech on every street.

I am attaching from April 26 Jerusalem Post, the following:

1. Article

2. Letters

3. Statement from Ilan Pappe, Faculty member at Haifa University

The whole thing concerns the UK’s Nat’l Association of University Teachers’ boycott of the academics at 2 Israel universities.

I so rarely term the phrase ‘anti-Semitism’. Yet, as I have written before, I have experienced this first-hand and, as a result, decided to read about the subject; to try to understand what’s behind the mind of such persons. (Yesterday, an Austrian right-wing politician, already banned in the past from government, claimed again that there was not enough proof that Nazi gas chambers ever existed).

If you read these articles, you will hopefully come to the same conclusion as I – that there’s an ugly smell in some of the UK academic centres. (I wanted to write ‘our’ – I’m still British in so many ways). And a reminder that Ilan Pappe could not have had such a letter published in many of the countries the AUT accepts or ignores.

Gosh, is this country misunderstood or what!

In my constant contact with Americans, including rigth-wing religious warmongers, I hear about the American tragedy that was 9/11. It certainly was that – certainly a belly-blow to a country not used to such aggression in recent history. But don’t claim to be alone in this World. Relatoively speaking, Israel has had so many 9/11s throughout it’s 57 years in official existence. We have security coming out of ears!

Yet we also have thousands of Israeli Muslim students studying with Israeli Jews and Israel Christians (and Israel atheists), all studying together under one and the same roof.

Perfect? Of course not. After 57 years of tension and strife, it is incredible that this place has not collapsed into anarchy. But democracy and decency are rife here.

Stop hitting a decent person on the head and he’ll stop hitting you back. Accept him as your friend and you won’t have a better friend.

Stephen