A chara, – In the last 18 months we’ve had the Teachers’ Union of Ireland voting to boycott Israel even while its members work in colleges maintaining academic links with China and Russia. We’ve seen students at NUI Galway take a similar decision while ignoring their college’s research ties with the Saudi oil company Aramco. Meanwhile, there have been large protests outside the embassy of Israel over its restrictions on Gaza but not so much as one voice or placard raised in anger at the Egyptian embassy despite that country’s blockade on the territory.
Only those who themselves are urging a boycott of Israel can truly account for their own motives but I know double-standards when I see them. – Is mise,
CIARÁN
Ó RAGHALLAIGH,
College Street,
Cavan.
Sir, – Dr Kevin McCarthy (August 20th) outrageously compares what he calls "a boycott of all things Israeli" with "1930s Berlin" and the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.
This is a strawman argument, framing the call for a cultural boycott of the Israeli state in terms never used by its advocates.
The only “things Israeli” susceptible to boycott under the stringent terms laid down by the Palestinian Campaign for the Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel are events wholly or partly financed by the Israeli state, which has openly declared that it “see[s] no difference between propaganda and culture”.
The persistent attempts to blur this distinction by Israel’s advocates amounts to blurring the distinction between Jews worldwide and a rogue state that claims to represent them.
Clearly this is the same obfuscation practised by those “masked thugs intimidating customers attempting to enter Jewish businesses”, of whom Dr McCarthy writes. Surely he should hold himself to higher standards. – Yours, etc,
RAYMOND DEANE,
Cultural Liaison,
Ireland-Palestine
Solidarity Campaign,
Capel Street,
Dublin 1.