(December, 2002; updated March, 2006)
Author and peace activist Amos Oz observed
[1]
that Palestinians are simultaneously engaged in two wars:
a just war against occupation,
and an unjust war aimed at destroying Israel.
Willful blindness towards
the second war is a hallmark of anti-Israel prejudice,
and is a common denominator in petitions for academic
boycott of Israel. We focus here on one example from 2002, citing
more recent developments in the epilogue.
Under the guise of a general concern for human rights,
a group of scientists circulated the following declaration
in April, 2002
[2, page 3] :
CALL FOR A BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONSThe boycotters shamelessly omit that Israel's military reoccupation was a response to a massive campaign of suicide bombing. In March, 2002, the month scornfully referenced in the declaration, Israel suffered a tenfold increase in casualties over the previous month: 130 dead and 645 injured [3]. Relative to total population, this is equivalent to 7000 French or 33,000 American casualties, all from attacks designed to maximize civilian deaths. Had the French or Americans been victims of this level of terrorism, they would have mounted a vigorous military response.
The campaign against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority launched at the end of March 2002 by the government headed by Ariel Sharon, in defiance of United Nations Resolutions and the Geneva Conventions, has led to a military reoccupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and to a dramatic increase in human rights violations. Under these circumstances, I can no longer in good conscience continue to cooperate with official Israeli institutions, including universities. I will attend no scientific conferences in Israel, and I will not participate as referee in hiring or promotion decisions by Israeli universities, or in the decisions of Israeli funding agencies. I will continue to collaborate with, and host, Israeli scientific colleagues on an individual basis."
These suicide attacks cannot be viewed as resistance to occupation.
As we conclusively document below,
Palestinian militant organizations intended the Intifada for
the dissolution of the
entire Jewish state.
While Israel must be accountable for her transgressions, there is
enormous inequity in a boycott that punishes Israel
while ignoring the relentless attacks of
implacable Palestinian terrorist organizations.
PFLP, responsible for suicide bombings and the 2001
assassination of Israel's Tourism Minister Ze'evi,
has the goal of retaking all of Palestine from Israel
[4].
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, responsible for over 20 major suicide bombings
in the period 2001 - 2003
[5],
declares that all peaceful compromise
must be rejected and that martyrdom operations should continue until the
Jewish State is destroyed
[6].
In 2002, Islamic Jihad's secretary-general Ramadan Shalah defined
the goal of the Islamic movement within Palestine as
"liberating Palestine, all of Palestine, and
eliminating the Zionist state within it"
[7].
Islamic Jihad leader
Nafez Azzam promised that resistance will continue
until all of Israel is replaced by an Islamic State
[8],
[9].
The radical Islamic organization Hamas
averaged more than one major suicide bombing per month during 2001 - 2003,
killing hundreds of Israeli civilians
[5].
Hamas admits outright that these
attacks are not simply a response to occupation
of Gaza and the West Bank.
To Hamas, all of Israel is occupied; Article 13 of the Hamas Charter
[10]
proclaims
"...the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion..."Hamas despises Jews [11]. Article 32 of the Hamas Charter [10] resurrects a notorious antisemitic forgery:
"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion', and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."Hamas's avowed goal is to replace Israel with an Islamic state, from "the river to the sea" [12], [13], [14], [15]. In December, 2002, Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin said to a crowd of over 15,000 supporters in Gaza [16],
"Resistance will move forward, jihad will continue, and martyrdom operations will continue until the full liberation of Palestine. The Zionist entity will fall within the first quarter of this century."In a 2002 interview [17], Roger Gaess asked Yassin:
"When you refer to ending the occupation, do you mean the occupation since 1967 or the whole deal?"Yassin answered, "All of Israel is occupied."
"By God we will not leave one Jew in Palestine. We will fight them with all the strength we have. This is our land, not the Jews'."In May, 2005, Hamas released a statement referring to Israel as a "cancer" and promising to continue fighting
"until the liberation of the last inch of our land and the last refugee heads back to his home" [19].After Arafat's death on November 11, 2004, new President Mahmoud Abbas suggested that this was an opportune time for nonviolence. Hamas spokesman Ahmad Hajj Ali countered that Hamas will not yield to demands by the Palestinian leadership to stop attacks on Israel. He promised
"Hamas will continue to resist with arms until Palestine is liberated from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea." [20]From the New York Times (August 21, 2005 front page):
Hamas has a "mission," said Ziad Abu Amr, a political scientist and independent legislator who serves as a liaison between Mr. Abbas and Hamas. "They want to Islamicize the state and society. Yes, in the final analysis, they want control."In a January 25, 2006 televised interview, Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar stated:
"Palestine means Palestine in its entirety - from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, from Ras Al-Naqura to Rafah. We cannot give up a single inch of it. Therefore, we will not recognize the Israeli enemy's [right] to a single inch." [21]In March, 2006, Zahar became the Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs, but he has not softened his position. In an April interview with Xinhua [22], he stated:
"I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it... our dream [is] to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel). This dream will become real one day. I'm certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land."Zahar has made similar pronouncements in 2008; see the January 15, 2008 New York Times. In January, 2006, Hamas wrested control of the government from Fatah in the parliamentary election. A day after the Hamas government was sworn in, 4 Israeli civilians were killed in a suicide attack, which Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri called a "natural response ... to the continued Israeli killing, incursions and arrests" [23].
Hamas leaders have always been greatly revered by the populace. On August 22, 2003, nearly 100,000 Palestinians crowded the streets to mourn the death of Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab [28]. Abu Shanab, considered moderate by some, supported suicide bombings of civilians inside Israel and spoke of purifying Tel Aviv from the Jews (New York Times, October 28, 2000). On March 22, 2004, over 200,000 Palestinians, many in tears, marched in the funeral for slain Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin [29]. On April 18, 2004, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians mourned the death of assassinated Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi [30].
Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) too has been responsible for systematic terrorism. Khatibs (preachers) paid by the PA, as well as schools run by the "Islamic Association", have exhorted children from kindergarten up to kill Jews and die as martyrs [31], [32]. Educational programs on PA TV teach that all of Israel belongs to Palestinians; see the sample video clip [33]. A video clip from 2004 [34] shows Arafat inciting a crowd of children to die for Jerusalem. Voice of Palestine, the official PA radio station, regularly refers to murders of Israeli civilians as acts of heroic martyrdom; for an example, see [35]. In the weeks following Arafat's death, Palestinian incitement abated a bit, but again in February 2005, PA TV aired a sermon calling for the utter destruction of Israel [36]. For another example, see the video clip and transcript [37] of a recent sermon sponsored by the PA (May 13, 2005) in which Jews are blamed for Naziism and in which Muslims are exhorted to "finish off every Jew".
Following an Arafat speech in Ramallah (February 6, 2002) railing against infidels and hailing martyrs [38], the military wing of his own Fatah party (Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades) launched nine suicide bombings in quick succession [5]. Documents prove that the Palestinian Authority has directly financed suicide bombings [39]. While the Brigades have murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians, the Palestinian Authority proudly accepts responsibility:
"We have clearly declared that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades are part of Fatah,"said Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei in a June, 2004 interview with the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat [40]. Qurei evidently believes in the legitimacy of Hamas terrorist training camps as well. In August, 2004, Hamas suicide bombers caused over 100 civilian casualties in Beer Sheva, and when Israel responded the next week with a deadly airstrike on a Hamas camp in Gaza, Qurei asserted that Hamas would be justified in taking revenge [41]. (Would he think that bin Laden is justified in avenging the US bombing of al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan?) Ken Roth, Director of Human Rights Watch, stated in November, 2002 [42],
"The greatest failure of President Arafat and the PA leadership is their unwillingness to deploy the criminal justice system to deter the suicide bombings, particularly in 2001, when the PA was most capable of doing so."The state of Israel does not appear on Middle East maps in any Palestinian school texts [43]. (For examples of maps omitting Israel, see [44], [45]). Such denial reflects the extreme view, held for example by Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59]. Boycotters make no bid to encourage more moderate Palestinian voices like Jibril Rajoub, Ziad Abu Amr, Sari Nusseibeh, Ziad Abu Zayad, Abu Mazen, Yasser Abed Rabbo, Bassem Eid, Nabil Amr, Mamdouh Nofal, Ghassan Khatib, Riad al-Malki, Khalil Shikaki, Daoud Kuttab, Rami G. Khouri, Salim Tamari, Musa Budeiri, and Tawfiq Abu Bakr. In short, boycotters demand moderation, but only on one side.