First Instincts

The crucial place of Israeli academia in the advancement of science has been recognized in the latest compilation of Scientific American's list of 50 of the world's leading innovators, just published. In fact, Israeli researchers dominate the section on neurological insights, contributing half the entries in the field, thanks to advances in treating neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. How can anyone suggest boycotting this?

The plot thickens. When I read about the story of one group of researchers recognized in this list, my first instinct was to think it showed traces of a silent boycott, that well hidden but no doubt (and therefore) potent campaign which likely precedes and succeeds UCU's shameful Motion 30 and the official campaign. That's the thing about the silent boycott. When something as absurd as this happens, one reaches for the explanation which is so readily suggested here in Boycotting Britannia:

Ben-Jacob told The Jerusalem Post he was very happy his and Baruchi's work was being recognized, especially since when he first sent an article on it for publication to the prestigious journal Nature along with recommendations from three Nobel Prize laureates, it was rejected on the grounds of "not being of general interest"

Do I need to add that Nature is based here in Boycotting Britannia?!

UPDATE
You know that saying about always trusting one's first instincts? Well, it seems that I should have been more trusting. Remembering how silent and not-so-silent boycotts have cropped up in our journals, I read with interest the links sent to me by one of the lovely BBA Forumniks which suggest the people over at Nature are not always very clear on the wrongs of boycotting Israeli academics, having lent the journal's pages to a lengthy debate on the subject a few years back, perhaps when the review process for the Ben-Jacob/Baruchi submission was underway. That being said - although I find it truly alarming that the question of a boycott should have been posed in reference to Israel, in no way the obvious target for a boycott and therefore absurd for it to drive a theoretical enquiry in such a prestigious journal - the exercise did produce a very strong piece against the boycott which was particularly important & compelling.

That a silent boycott should come to be associated with this otherwise prestigious journal just shows how damaging & bad this boycott is proving to be for all concerned - in this case (one amongst many suffering the boycott's damaging effects, as this BBA can attest from personal experience!), for Britain and the prestige of its journals & academe. Thanks to the potentiality of this uncontrollable silent boycott - this potentiality being its most emboldening characteristic: when one doesn't know the size of the beast, its size can be exaggerated - in the not-knowing, it can grow in size, stretching even to encompass prestigious journals which shouldn't be vulnerable to abasement in this way; but necessarily are, given the damage which this boycott movement has done to British academia.

Football Morality

After the match, the news trailed a clip of a bellowing football commentator, struggling to make himself heard above the din celebrating the last-minute winning goal scored by the footballer now nicknamed - get this - the Golan Heights (for the heights achieved by Omer Golan in scoring that goal)! The commentator repeats, exuberantly & incredulously:

Israel has done England “a favour to end all favours”

Afterwards, during a radio phone-in about the game, a grateful caller (who stressed he was neither Israeli nor Jewish) tried to say something about how he hoped that we would now stop demonizing and vilifying Israel; but the Boycott Boosting Corp came into its own & he was cut off in mid-call by the show's host, on the basis that politics shouldn't be brought into this.

I wonder, though - remembering what Camus once quipped about how the best lessons of morality and the duty of man are learned through football. Here in Boycotting Britannia, we have shown ourselves to be in desperate need of some lessons in duty & morality, obviously, what with our unions having so spectacularly fallen foul of protections against discrimination & racism.

I glanced through some of the talk-backs in The Sun on the game - quite a discovery, this is indeed a first! In addition to finding with some amusement how one thread seems to have been taken over by Hebrew-speakers, I was pleased to note how one poster (Elvis) seems to have been transformed by the experience: before the game, he'd gone for a Protocols take on the situation (or should that now be W&M?!), imagining the match was going to be fixed by Jewish money, with some footie-mad Russian, with cash to spare, pulling the strings to rig England's chances & boost those of Russia. After the game, the same Elvis was all sweetness and light, in a clipped sort of way, in thanks to Israel. (Graun - of course! - made much the same Jewish conspiracy insinuation in one of its pre-match sports blogs... Seriously!)

Camus was apparently referring to:

an ethic of sticking up for your friends, of valuing courage and fair-play

believing that people

try to confuse us with convoluted moral systems to suit their own agendas

when we

may do better to look to the simple morality of the football field than to politicians and philosophers

... and especially, bien sure, boycotting academics!

Let's hope the qualities of friendship, courage & fair-play demonstrated this week-end retakes the field and that the simple morality of football will replace the shameful & petty posturing of the boycotting academics still trying to ruin our union and our academy to suit their own agendas.

One of the lovely BBA Forumniks does well to remind us that the academic boycott is a zombie, apparently possibly about to rear its ugly ahead again. And there's still the silent boycott which, no doubt, informally or unofficially precedes & succeeds this whole disgraceful debacle over UCU Motion 30. Let's hope we'll learn the lessons of morality & duty suggested by the football mania of this week-end and that the favour Israel did for England will be one to end all boycotts!