An Australian Lynching For A Jerusalem Academic (plus videos)

How low is the anti-Israel movement capable of sinking, how mean-minded and downright ridiculous it can be!

The Australian newspaper in its Wednesday "Higher Education" pages last week reported that Associate Professor Jake Lynch, head of the pro-BDS  Cen­tre for Peace and Con­flict Stud­ies at the University of Sydney, rebuffed Hebrew University of Jerusalem academic Dan Avnon's request "for as­sis­tance with study­ing civics ed­u­ca­tion in Aus­tralia under a fel­low­ship agree­ment be­tween the two in­sti­tu­tions".

Professor Avnon, the report explains, "is cred­ited with de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing the only state pro­gram in civics writ­ten for joint Jew­ish-Arab high schools".  In turning down his request, Lynch cited the Centre's espousal of BDS as the reason, telling Avnon:

"Your re­search sounds in­ter­est­ing and worth­while. How­ever, we are sup­port­ers of the cam­paign of Boy­cott, Di­vest­ment and Sanc­tions, and that in­cludes the call for an aca­d­e­mic boy­cott of Is­raeli uni­ver­si­ties."

 Responded Avnon:

"I find it ironic that you pro­mote a pol­icy of boy­cott that does not dis­tin­guish one in­di­vid­ual from an­other. It is ironic be­cause, like my­self, many (prob­a­bly most) in­tel­lec­tu­als and schol­ars in rel­e­vant fields are doing our best to ef­fect change in Is­raeli po­lit­i­cal cul­ture. We pay prices for going against the in­sti­tu­tional grain. And then we turn around and meet such a ‘blind to the per­son’ pol­icy."

He added:

"One com­mon ten­dency that must be changed if we ever want to live sane lives is to de­bunk cat­e­gor­i­cal and stereo­typ­i­cal think­ing when deal­ing with human be­ings."

No reply from Lynch (who in 2009 vainly called for the University of Sydney to sever ties to the Hebrew University and the Haifa Technion) was forthcoming.

But in a subsequent report the following day the newspaper quoted him as defending his rejection of Avnon's request:

'In a sting­ing cri­tique of Aus­tralia’s for­eign pol­icy, Jake Lynch said the cen­tre boy­cotted Is­raeli in­sti­tu­tions "be­cause of the de­fi­cien­cies of of­fi­cial for­eign pol­icy and diplo­macy by Aus­tralia and other in­flu­en­tial states".

He said sup­port­ing the Boy­cott, Di­vest­ment and Sanc­tions move­ment against Is­rael sent a “mes­sage of un­ac­cept­abil­ity for Is­rael’s ex­pan­sion­ist poli­cies and mil­i­tarism”. “The mes­sage has not been clear enough from many gov­ern­ments, in­clud­ing Aus­tralia’s, and that has con­tributed to the prob­lem,” Mr Lynch said.

"By with­hold­ing our co-op­er­a­tion on an in­sti­tu­tional level, we are doing our bit to make up for that."

  To its credit, the University of Sydney distanced itself from Lynch's attitude, while Oppostion foreign affairs spokesperson Senator Julie Bishop made the reasonable point that the Centre's decision

 "to put a ban on con­tacts with Is­raeli aca­d­e­mics is com­pletely at odds with the aims of a cen­tre that pur­ports to be ded­i­cated to stud­ies in peace"

and queried whether Cen­tre de­clared its pro-BDS stance be­fore it re­ceiv­ed a $A47,000 grant from Au­sAid a couple of years ago.


So that's the latest on BDS in Sydney.  Now for the latest on BDS in Melbourne.

Hat tip to reader Shirlee for the following footage of BDSers ("Students For Palestine") there wearing Santa hats warbling bad cheer towards the Zionist Entity; here, it's evidently not going to be over because the fat lady, instead of singing, is taking pictures:

Those dodgy choristers and their fellow activists were attending a "Don't Buy Israeli Apartheid for Christmas" rally on 7 December in  City Square,  bent on spreading their Israel-demonising messages via alternative lyrics to Christmas carols, and wielding props bearing such slogans as "Israel is a terrorist state" (what, nothing about Syria?):

 Hullo 'ullo 'ullo, do I see the long arm of the law? – what's this all about, then?:

"And so this is Christmas, let's boycott Israel" ...  Not over yet; the fat lady's still not singing:

Oy!

Update: Another in the series (arguably the "best" in its horribly fascinating way of all).  Eardrum warning: screeching female demoniser at large:

Thanks, Shirlee!