The Case against Academic Boycotts of Israel is a collection of essays by university scholars pointing out the absurdity of the BDS movement. Avi Woolf notes that, despite the book’s worthy arguments and noble goal, it contains an underlying weakness:
The book’s contributors come almost exclusively from the left and far left, they swear allegiance to liberal and progressive principles, and their points of reference are almost exclusively within that ideological sphere. . . . Eminent scholar Martha Nussbaum’s [mention] of Margaret Thatcher [alongside] Nazi-sympathizer Martin Heidegger as figures worthy of protest or denial of awards is particularly disturbing and indicative of how many left-wingers see all rightists as nothing but a bunch of Nazis.
This ideological blind spot is even more apparent when it comes to treatment of Israel itself. Author after author insists that, contrary to stereotype, Israelis are not a bunch of right-wing or conservative folk. They harp on the liberal atmosphere on [Israeli] university campuses and even talk of the creation of “transnational” or other forms of identity which aren’t—perish the thought—ethnocentric or nationalistic.
The implicit assumption that being conservative or nationalist is inherently bad is not just deeply insulting but also profoundly counterproductive. It makes this protest sound less like a fight for a genuine free marketplace of ideas and more of a cry of “shun them, not us—we’re the good guys!”—a protest that rings hollow and has a whiff of hypocrisy.
Read more on Mida: http://mida.org.il/2015/02/19/bds-dilemma-jewish-liberal-academics/