Over the past two months, students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza across the United States have called on their universities to divest from Israel and from weapons manufacturers involved in the assault. In many cases, students have also demanded that their schools respect the Palestinian call for an academic boycott of Israel. While some university administrations have agreed to negotiate with protesters over divestment, most have refused to consider a boycott. When Sonoma State University president Mike Lee, in a notable exception, announced that “SSU will not pursue or engage in any study abroad programs, faculty exchanges, or other formal collaborations that are sponsored by, or represent, the Israeli state academic and research institutions,” he was put on leave the next day for what the California State University chancellor called “insubordination.” Lee’s critics have echoed broader opposition to a boycott of Israeli universities. “President Lee sacrificed freedoms that are core to the mission of a university,” said Stephen Bittner, chair of the school’s history department, “namely the free and unfettered exchange of ideas.” Arguments like Bittner’s posit an abstract ideal, curiously disconnected from the material realities of Israeli academia, like its relation to the state—and especially the military—or its role in Palestinian subjugation and the massacre unfolding in Gaza. ….more
