Don't be fooled by Stellenbosch University denials!
3 December 2018
“Saying that Israeli and Palestinian academics “voluntarily” chose not to attend a conference at Stellenbosch University after being kicked off the speaking programme is like saying that a mugging victim has “voluntarily” surrendered his wallet after being threatened with a gun.”
Thus commented Prof. Rivka Carmi, President: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She was responding to claims by Stellenbosch University that eight academics – seven from Israel and one from Palestine - who withdrew from this week’s conference did so “voluntarily”, not because they had been prevented from participating.
To understand what really happened, we append the statement of Professor Mohammed Dajani, a Palestinian academic and peace activist from Birzheit University in Ramallah. Prof Dajani was removed from the programme as according to the BDS lobby, he was not an “authentic” representative of the Palestinians. Disgracefully, he was also represented by the conference organisers as being tainted because he had previously been brought out to South Africa by the SA Jewish Board of Deputies. It appears that BDS is no longer satisfied merely to call for boycotts against Israelis. They now also want to ban any Palestinian who has engaged with the official representative body of the Jewish community in South Africa, the SAJBD.
The response by Stellenbosch University to the criticism it has received since the story broke is both dishonest and insulting. The facts are that last week, the conference organisers caved in to threats by radical anti-Israel factions by cancelling the sessions at which the academics in question were scheduled to speak. It was because they had been unilaterally kicked off the programme that those academics decided not to attend the conference. There was nothing “voluntary” about it. And Stellenbosch University knows it.