A major national conference on the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign for Palestine will be held at the University of Sydney this week.
Predictably, the conference has been met with stock accusations of anti-Semitism.
With the baselessness of that charge increasingly apparent, it’s a good time to consider a more serious objection to academic BDS: the idea that academics’ duty is to privilege dialogue and debate, not boycott, as the pathway to a more peaceful world.
In fact, BDS springs from the failure of dialogue to secure peace. Initiated in 2005 by more than 170 Palestinian civil-society organisations, the campaign is a response to the blockade, illegal settlements, home demolitions, water theft, checkpoints and summary killings that turn the everyday life of an entire people into a waking nightmare.
It also demands recognition of the UN-mandated right of return of Palestinian refugees — a right that the refugees may or may not choose to exercise.
Read the full article by Nick Riemer at The Australian (subscription only).