Sarah Skwire and I, along with a group of friends, have started a new project and associated website:  Scholars Without Borders.  I reprint our statement of purpose immediately below and follow with a couple of comments.

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The movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction (BDS) Israel by shutting down intellectual exchange with Israeli academics is a shameful attempt to curtail academic freedom and quash the exchange of ideas and information that is at the heart of peaceful human cooperation and social progress.

We, the undersigned, will not allow our work to be used as a political tool. We will debate and discuss freely with scholars around the world. We will not participate in nor lend support to scholarly boycotts of countries such as Israel. We will not punish individuals for the actions of their governments. If invited to present our work in a country that is currently under such a boycott, or to collaborate with scholars in those countries, we will do everything possible to accept and, where possible, to reduce or waive our standard lecture fees.

The free exchange of ideas and research across political, religious, and cultural boundaries is the greatest hope for the future of humanity. The best way to demonstrate the power of freedom to governments that restrict it is to support and engage in such free exchange.

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At the core of our concern is the idea of punishing individual academics for the actions of their governments.  Whatever one’s position on Israel’s behavior and policy, we do not believe that cutting off interactions with scholars who bear no direct responsibility for the Israeli government’s actions is morally right or politically effective.

I would add that nothing in our statement should be taken to object to the use of boycotts in general. Boycotts can be effective political and economic tools if carefully targeted to those who are engaged in immoral behavior. Boycotting a racist restaurant is different from boycotting all the scholars from a country whose government engages in policies that you believe to be immoral.

Finally, one need not think Israel is either innocent or the lesser of the region’s evils to support our cause. In fact, I would argue that the deeper your concerns about Israel, the more you should support the free exchange of ideas so as to help give Israeli scholars access to material and intellectual support so they can more effectively object to the current regime and its policies. [UPDATE:  And although the BDS movement is surely the context for this statement, we believe it would apply with equal force to a simlar boycott of scholars in any other country as a way to object to their government’s policies.]

Simply put, we believe that the free and open exchange of ideas and information is the best way to demonstrate the power of freedom in the face of a whole variety of misguided and repressive policies by any government anywhere. If you agree, please click the link and sign our statement.