The president of Bar-Ilan University has called for Israeli professors who support an academic boycott of their country to quit or be fired.
The statement comes as Israel’s parliament debates legislation that would allow lawsuits against academics and others who support various boycotts of the Jewish state. The bill is not expected to become law, but it is generating questions about the role of scholars at public universities in Israel.
Bar-Ilan’s Moshe Kaveh, a former chairman of Israel’s Committee of University Presidents, is the first leader of an Israeli university to back the dismissal of the handful of Israeli professors who publicly expressed support for a boycott. Last year the president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev had no kind words for Neve Gordon, a professor of politics and government, for advocating an international academic boycott, but did not fire him.
“It’s easy to be brave when criticizing, but someone who has the courage to criticize the institution where he works should also have the courage to quit—and, if not, I as president will make it happen,” Mr. Kaveh told a Jewish education-and-culture festival on Thursday during a panel discussion with the education minister, Gideon Sa’ar, on the nature of Jewish identity.
“How can it be that a faculty member can stand in class and say to his students, ‘Boycott the State of Israel?’ Someone who criticizes the place where he works is ethically obliged to resign,” said Mr. Kaveh.
His remarks were greeted with warm applause from the audience and from the education minister, Israel Army Radio reported.
“When you call for an academic boycott of Israel, you don’t just do harm to the institution that pays your salary. You also harm academic freedom,” Mr. Sa’ar responded.
Menachem Klein, a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan who is firmly opposed to a boycott, said nonetheless that Mr. Kaveh “disregards the fundamental element of academic research.”
“I wish to remind Professor Kaveh.” he said, “that university researchers’ primary responsibility and loyalty are to universal-humanistic values that direct their scientific research, not to their employer.”
