STATEMENT OF NOBEL LAUREATES ON ACADEMIC BOYCOTTS, DIVESTMENTS AND SANCTIONS (BDS) ACTIONS AGAINST ISRAELI ACADEMICS, ISRAELI ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS AND ACADEMIC CENTERS AND INSTITUTES OF RESEARCH AND TRAINING WITH AFFILIATIONS IN ISRAEL

Led by Nobel Laureates, Roger Kornberg, Stanford University, and Steven Weinberg, University of Texas at Austin, 38 Nobel colleagues have endorsed the following statement written under the auspices of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) regarding worldwide attempts to boycott, divest from or sanction Israeli academics, institutions, and research and training centers.

Of special concern are the continued threat of a boycott by the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, of Ben Gurion University in Israel, student government divestment efforts in the University of California system, an attempt to get signatures for the California Initiative to divest pension funds from companies doing business with Israel or Israeli companies, as well as the initiative to shut down the Georgia Law Enforcement and Education Center at Georgia State University which has training and research connections with similar institutions in Israel.

A central theme of the Nobel Laureates' statement is:

"Academic and cultural boycotts, divestments and sanctions in the academy are:

* antithetical to principles of academic and scientific freedom,
* antithetical to principles of freedom of expression and inquiry, and
* may well constitute discrimination by virtue of national origin."

Instead of fostering peace, these boycott and divestment efforts are likely to be counterproductive to the dynamics of reconciliation that lead to peace...