MIDDLE EAST: A prominent Israeli linguist has said she supports a proposal by some Irish academics to put in place a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, but said this should only be done as part of a larger boycott of tourism, sport and cultural activities in Israel.
Tanya Reinhart, a former professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University who will soon take up a post at New York University, said any boycott should be modelled on that imposed on South Africa in the apartheid era.
"I am in favour of UN sanctions on Israel, sanctions as applied to rogue states. But in the absence of this, the next model is the model of South Africa," she said.
"That was the first time in history where we saw that international grassroots struggle can lead eventually to the end of apartheid. It would not be specifically a cultural or academic boycott, but including a cultural and academic boycott, like in South Africa." Ms Reinhart, who is a long-standing critic of Israeli government policy, rejected the claim that a boycott of academics could be counterproductive by silencing a channel of communication with potential instigators of change.
"Should specifically the academics be exempt from an ongoing boycott? I'm not calling specifically for the targeting of academics for boycott. But is it okay to boycott tourism and let hotel workers be fired because there is no tourism, and is it okay to boycott sport and music, but academics should be exempt? . . . Academics do academic boycotts, rock musicians should do music boycotts, soccer teams should not go to play soccer in Israel."
Ms Reinhart was in Ireland this week for a speaking tour that included engagements in Cork, Limerick and Dublin, where she delivered a tribute to Edward Said on the third anniversary of his death.
She regretted the public response in Israel to its army's bombardment of Lebanon earlier this year, which she argued had the opposite effect to that which might have been expected.
"Along with its moral horrors - Israel attacked a peaceful country, [ and] you would expect questions about this - it was a military defeat. It showed that even the military road does not guarantee military success. You would have expected that maybe there would have been many questions about the whole concept of how we should live with our neighbours. But in reality it had the opposite effect, pushing people towards the more nationalistic and right-wing side."