O caso do boicote*

Para fazer um reenquadramento da realidade [nao, os cientistas nao sao uma massa homogénea de anti-semitas ou pró-palestinianos, consoante quem le estas linhas], posto neste blogue uma notícia na Science, que saiu um ano* antes desta carta dirigida ao sindicato de professores universitários na Gra-Bretanha (AUT no texto) por um cientista israelita (carta que o Joao Miranda do Blasfemias postou ontem).

Science 3 June 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5727, p. 1397
DOI: 10.1126/science.308.5727.1397b

News of the Week
ACADEMIC POLITICS:
Boycott of Israeli Universities Overturned
Mason Inman

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--Buffeted by international criticism, the U.K. Association of University Teachers (AUT) has revoked a decision to boycott two Israeli universities. The boycott was approved at AUT's annual meeting in April and called on members to shun Bar Ilan University in Ramat-Gan because of its ties with a school in a contested settlement, and the University of Haifa for alleged harassment of a lecturer who oversaw a study critical of the Israeli military (Science, 29 April, p. 613). Haifa University denied the allegation and threatened to sue AUT for defamation.

Scholarly institutions quickly issued statements denouncing AUT on grounds that such boycotts violate academic freedom and are counterproductive. Among those who asked AUT to reconsider were the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences, AAAS (which publishes Science), and the U.K.'s Royal Society.

AUT members also protested. A group of 25 petitioned for a special meeting to reconsider the boycott, which they claimed had not been fully debated. Roughly 250 attended a meeting on 27 May at which two-thirds voted to overturn the resolution. They also asked AUT to review its international policies, including a call to the European Union to withhold funding from Israeli organizations "until Israel opens meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians."

"We are relieved that this counterproductive [boycott] policy has been overwhelmingly rejected," says sociologist David Hirsh of Goldsmiths College in London, co-founder of Emerge, a campaign set up to oppose the boycott.

Some who urged sanctions on Israel say the vote hasn't changed their plans, however: "The boycott remains," says one of the leaders, neurobiologist Steven Rose of the Open University in Milton Keynes, U.K., who will continue to honor it. But AUT is taking a different tack. The group's general secretary, Sally Hunt, said in a statement, "It is now time ... to commit to supporting trade unionists in Israel and Palestine working for peace."

Eu na caixa de comentários do Blasfémias escrevi que a comparaçao com o Lysenkoism é parva. Para explicar a minha caracterizaçao basta limitar-me ao aspecto diferencial mais fundamental: o lisenkoism aconteceu na Uniao Sovietica, um estado opressor que liquidava a liberdade de expressao, de movimentos, de existencia. Este caso é transnacional, acontecendo na Gra-Bretanha em que nem de perto, nem de longe tal situacao existe, e acontece no seio do mundo académico em que, também, nem de longe, nem de perto tal situaçao de repressao existe. Sendo necessário provas (deixem-me rir um bocadinho), este artigo e outros que também poderia postar, que foram sendo publicados na Science e na Nature, mostram-no claramente. Quando se fazem comparaçoes há que ter o sentido das proporçoes, caso contrário, pode-se ser caracterizado como parvo e eu até estou a ser boazinha.