The waiting game

A British academic takes an important stand against Israel:

A British professor has refused a request to write an article for an academic journal funded by Israeli universities.

Professor Richard Seaford, from the University of Exeter in England, refused to write the article, saying he was taking part in the academic boycott of Israel.

“Alas, I am unable to accept your kind invitation, for reasons that you may not like. I have, along with many other British academics, signed the academic boycott of Israel, in the face of the brutal and illegal expansionism and the slow-motion ethnic cleansing being practiced by your government,” Seaford wrote to Dr. Daniella Dueck. Dueck, a lecturer at Bar Ilan University and a member of the Scripta Classica Israelica editorial board had requested that Seaford write a book review for the journal.

Seaford, the head of the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Exeter University, told Haaretz that the academic boycott “is just a small contribution to the long-term raising of international consciousness which represents the only hope for an eventual just peace in the Middle East. In this respect, there is a parallel with the academic boycott of Apartheid South Africa.”

Such boycotts will become more common, not unlike the growing international movement against apartheid South Africa. Time is on our side.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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