U.S. campaign for academic boycott of Israel

There is now a U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, alongside the British one that the UCU was forced to halt because it broke UK anti-discrimination laws. See this article in Inside Higher Ed for information on the campaign. This is in addition to a group called Teachers Against Occupation, which recently formed, and which publicized an open letter to President Obama written by David Lloyd (USC) and signed by about 900 academics. For the text of the letter and the signatories, see article in the Daily Star (Lebanon), also available here.

It's a very dispiriting letter, placing the entire blame on Israel, accusing it of committing "one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times." The last paragraph says that, "Almost certainly, the only hope of a lasting solution is a single state in Israel/Palestine, committed to the civil and human rights of all peoples within its boundaries, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. That is, after all, the standard to which we hold all other states in the world, Israel alone excepted."

What do they mean by a single state - what would happen to the Jews living in this single state once they are a minority in it? How can the Jews of Israel and Hamas live together in a single state without an even worse state of war than the one that exists right now? I'm not defending what Israel has done in Gaza - I think I've made it clear in this blog that I think that Israel should not have attacked Gaza, that negotiations are the only way to peace, that Israel should be talking to Hamas.

A single state is not the way to peace, it is the way to perpetual war. It is the way to worse atrocities than the ones we have just seen committed.

Even more dispiriting to me personally is that I know some of the people who have signed this letter.

Update: Haaretz today (1/29/09) has a good article on this boycott attempt.