Just received this via a mailing list for Cognitive Linguists (I've deleted the names of the linguists who made the statement, just to save space):
The statement below deals with an issue that is of importance to all linguists. Please respond as you feel is appropriate. Thanks.
Academic Boycotts in Linguistics
Several months ago a number of European academics initiated a campaign to boycott cooperation with Israeli universities and other research institutions as an expression of oppostion to Israel's military response to the Palestinian intafada. A counter-boycott protest soon followed, and the controversy over this issue has become intense. Until recently we would not have considered writing to the Linguist List on this matter, as it was a general problem of the relation between politics and academic life. However, it has now become a matter which concerns linguists directly. Several weeks ago Dr. Mona Baker, Director of the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology (UMIST) dismissed two Israeli scholars from the editorial boards of translation journals which she edits. She removed Professor Gideon Toury of the Dept. of General and Comparative Literature at Tel Aviv University from the board of Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication, and Dr. Miriam Shlesinger of the Unit of Translation and Interpreting Studies at Bar-Ilan Universtiy from the board of Translation Studies Abstracts. Her stated reason for doing this is that she thought that it was an appropriate way of implementing the boycott.
In our view, academic boycotts in general and Dr. Baker's mode of observing this one in particular are entirely unacceptable for at least two obvious reasons. First, they are directed at scientific researchers who have no direct connection to government policy. These actions target people without reference to their views or actions, but solely on the basis of the fact that they live and work in a particular country whose government the supporters of the boycott object to. In this respect academic boycotts are no less racist than the exclusionary policies that they purport to oppose. It is interesting to note in the present instance that Dr. Shlesinger is a past chair of the Israeli branch of Amnesty International and a long time critic of Israel's policies in the occupied territories. Second, this boycott is acutely discriminatory in that it focuses exculsively on Israel, and takes no account of the severe human rights abuses and brutal military interventions committed by other countries, often on a larger scale. So, for example, no academic boycott has, to the best of our knowledge, been applied to Russia in response to its war in Chechnya, to Serbia when Milosevic pursued his campaign througout the former Yugoslavia, or to China in reaction to its long standing occupation of Tibet and its problematic human rights record at home. Most tellingly, we do not recall anyone seriously attempting to launch a boycott of American academic institutions despite the many controversial military adventures that the United States has engaged in over the past several decades. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the current group of boycott enthusiasts would be less than anxious to give up lucrative sabbaticals and research opportunities at American institutions.
Most of us strongly oppose Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. However, we do not regard an academic boycott of Israeli universities or researchers as an acceptable means for expressing one's objections to the policies and actions of the Israeli government. We agree with Noam Chomsky's view that one does not boycott people or their cultural institutions as an expression of political protest, particularly when the actions of other governments, often one's own, are no less worthy of opposition. We call on our colleagues to oppose this and all other academic boycotts. We urge them not to engage in discriminatory behaviour of this kind.
