More Moor on academic boycott

I received several different queries from friends about my recent post on academic boycott. Both Adam Horowitz and Sami Hermez, who has an excellent article about the difference between boycott and censorship at the Electronic Intifada, pointed out that the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) seeks only to boycott institutions, not individuals. Consequently, I was asked to clarify my position on this issue.

My purpose in writing that essay was to describe the comprehensive moral framework for academic boycott. I feel strongly that our strategic decisions ought to be informed by purist principles. At the same time, our strategies are restricted by pragmatic considerations. The PACBI campaign is the tangible product of principles constrained by real-world application. I endorse their approach, but want to note that there is a sound moral basis for a broader boycott should it ever be deemed practicable by the interested parties.

About Ahmed Moor

Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer who was born in the Gaza Strip. He is currently a Soros Fellow and a graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He also co-edited the After Zionism anthology. Twitter: @ahmedmoor
Posted in BDS

{ 24 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. yonira says:

    How would this academic boycott affect Marwan Barghouti’s doctorate?

    link to jpost.com

  2. Shmuel says:

    Ahmed,

    Thanks for the clarification. I didn’t get that from your original post.

  3. Evildoer says:

    I don’t understand how this clarifies anything.

  4. Evildoer,
    I think the clarification is that the principle Moor was calling for still stands, according to him. But that he supports the PACBI call and understands it for being a pragmatic and real world application of principles. Correct me if I’m wrong.

    Yonira,
    Palestinians can study at Israeli universities otherwise they would have no other chance to get higher education except to leave the country, which some people would like. The boycott does not call on boycotting Barghouti, just as it does not boycott a zionist per se (reading the call and the articles might help you before commenting). Barghouti would be boycotted, however, if he decided to do a joint project with an Israeli institution and under that pretext lecture in the US (as an example). The boycott is of Israeli institutions and so he would not be exempt for being Palestinian and collaborating with an Israeli institution.

  5. Pingback: 70 PhD positions in Computer Science, Electrical and … | Computer Science Applied

Leave a Reply