Short and sharp letter in today’s Australian refuting the almost daily barrage against anybody who dares challenge Israel (some background to Jake Lynch here and here):
Your campaign to equate the call for an academic boycott of Israel with anti-Semitism is an attempt, as sinister as it is absurd, to stifle an important debate.
There are other countries that occupy territory recognised as not their own; kill large numbers of civilians in military action; stockpile nuclear weapons without joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and violate the 1973 UN convention against apartheid. But only one does all four.
There is no non-Jewish state in that category, so the charge of discrimination is easily disproved. Or are you resolved not to let facts get in the way of a good witch-hunt?
Jake Lynch, director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sydney University
Here’s the Lynch article in ABC’s The Drum about why BDS is important in holding the Jewish state to account for human rights abuses.