Sunday, November 12, 2006
The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom warns against a “silent boycott†in Britain against Israeli institutes of higher education.
The council said that Israeli researchers wishing to publish articles in Britain were asked to remove the name of which ever Israeli academic institute they belonged to as a condition for publishing their articles.
The latest “unofficial boycott†was initiated by the “Bibliography of Translation Studies" journal, owned by a British publishing house headed by Mona Baker, a supporter of the academic boycott on Israel.
The publishing house invited professors from all over the world to send in articles for publication. Among the many professors who accepted the invitation was Prof. Miriam Shlesinger, Department Chair of Translation and Interpreting Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
Shlesinger asked the new associate editor of the publication, Prof. Gaby Saldahana if she would be willing to accept Israeli articles. Saldahana replied that she would accept articles from researchers in Israel, but not from an Israeli academic institute.
Shlesinger, who used to head Amnesty International in Israel, decided not to send in an article to the journal...
Baker was the one who fired two Israeli employees from the staff of her academic journal a couple of years back. The article details some of the more overt expressions of this bigotry. Readers will be familiar with the events.
This isn't, or shouldn't be, a surprise.
See Self-selection: anti-Semitic academics face extinction