Misreading the Paris Book Fair Boycott

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Arabists have failed once again. Via FrontPageMag: Israel was the guest of honor at this year’s Salon du Livre inParis, provoking a Muslim boycott which in turn provoked atorrent of well-mannered reprobation. Egyptian novelist Alaa el-Aswani, disheartened that France would honor “a country guilty of crimes against humanity,” vowed to temper his presence by distributing photos of Palestinian and Lebanese children, victims of “Israel’s policies.” La Fabrique, a small press specialized in post-Zionism that has always snubbed the Book Fair, decided to attend in an act of résistance and display large format photos of Palestinian suffering. A. B.Yehoshua, interviewed on

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Don’t tell me Muslims aren’t fascist

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From Italian Book Fair’s Plans to Honor Israel Lead to Protests: The selection of Israel as guest of honor at this spring’s International Book Fair in Turin has set off a furious debate among Italian, Israeli and Arab authors and intellectuals, including calls to boycott the event, Italy’s largest annual gathering of the publishing world. Those opposed to the decision say that offering such an honor at a fair opening in May, when Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary as a nation, is to ignore its policies toward Palestinians. “A prestigious event like the book fair can’t pretend it doesn’t

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The Academic Friends of Israel Press Release

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The Academic Friends of Israel welcomes the UCU decision to put an end to its involvement with plans for an academic boycott of Israel that has plagued the union and its predecessors since 2003. Ronnie Fraser Director of the Academic Friends of Israel commented: “While we welcome the UCU’s decision to take the academic boycott of Israel off the agenda we remain concerned that the UCU still intends to explore ways to implement the motion such as calling for a moratorium on EU research and cultural collaborations with Israel. Another part of the resolution states that criticism of Israel cannot

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New pariah on the block

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Excerpted from The Economist: The campaign for sanctions against Israel is growing. But it faces resistance and is less effective than it looks. For once, Israel’s critics and cheerleaders agree on something: the Jewish state risks greater international isolation. Pro-Israel groups such as NGO Monitor and the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs say a new assault is on the way. In the other camp, Shir Hever of the Alternative Information Centre, an Israeli-Palestinian activist group in Jerusalem, says that advocating a boycott is no longer always treated as anti-Semitism. Both sides have a motive to exaggerate such claims. But “boycotts,

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Polish European Parliament Members to Boycott Anti-Israel UN Conference

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From Polish European Parliament Members to Boycott Anti-Israel UN Conference: A UN conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to be hosted at the European Parliament this month, will be boycotted by Polish members of the European Parliament from across the political spectrum who say that the conference is biased against Israel. The Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor said the upcoming conference is a rehash of the 2001 UN Durban conference on racism, which saw unprecedented levels of anti-Zionist rhetoric, and calls for Israel’s destruction. Parliament member Konrad Szymanski said: “(The) UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People

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Academics Oppose Israel Boycott

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Kudos to Alan Dershowitz who once again proves that Jews have more brains than the so-called academia of Britain. From Academics Oppose Israel Boycott: More than 10,000 academics, including 32 Nobel prize winners, have signed a declaration saying they would not join any project which barred Israelis. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who drafted the statement for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), said that should the UK’s University and College Union “go forward with a boycott of Israeli academics and institutions, the end result will be a self-inflicted wound on British academia.”

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British Academics’ Boycott of Israel Provokes Reaction

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It’s about time somebody with integrity, grit and resolve did something. From British Academics’ Boycott of Israel Provokes Reaction: Few could have predicted the scale of the backlash to the University and College Union’s resolution to boycott Israel. Tony Blair phoned the Israeli prime minister to reassure him that the motion did not reflect wider public opinion. In Israel, MPs began drafting a bill to label British imports – allowing consumers to stage their own counter boycott. In the U.S., 2,000 American scholars – including at least nine Nobel laureates – have vowed to stay away from any event from

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It’s Time to End the Vilification of Israel

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From It’s Time to End the Vilification of Israel: Heigh-ho, it’s boycott time again – as Zionophobic zealots of our universities decide to have another go at ostracizing their fellow academics in Israel.Whether it’s in the best of taste to like Jews better when they’re in concentration camps than when they’re in their own country I leave to less interested parties to decide. But if anti-Semitism is repugnant to humanity, then it is no less repugnant to humanity to single out one country for your hatred, to hate it beyond reason and against evidence, to pluck it from the complex

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