For readers who have not yet purchased my recent book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel please see this extremely generous review. Obviously, I would be grateful if readers would pass this on to anyone they think might be interested and/or post up the link on any relevant websites. To read the review, click here:

http://www.thejc.com/arts/book-reviews/21604/review-a-state-beyond-pale

To purchase the book on Amazon, click here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Beyond-Pale-Europes-Problem/dp/0297856642/ref=pd_ts_b_16?ie=UTF8&s=books

If you want a comparison that illustrates the difference between the United States and Europe on attitudes to Israel in particular and basic standards of moral clarity in general, consider the following. Yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution deriding the Goldstone Report on Gaza as “biased and unworthy of further consideration” by 344 to 36, not much short of a 10-1 margin. That’s moral clarity.

Representing the European Union, Britain and France by contrast will be dancing through hoops at the United Nations General Assembly today with assorted dictatorships and tyrannies in a desperate attempt to massage and amend a motion based on the odious UN Human Rights Council’s (HRC) October 16 resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report and effectively throwing Israel’s right to self-defence out of the window. The French and the Brits could not even be bothered to turn up to vote at the HRC session in October, but under pressure from Israel and the United States now say they might possibly vote against the resolution in the General Assembly. Then again, they might vote in favour if they can get a couple of changes to the text. And then again (again) they might just abstain if they can’t make up their minds. That’s not moral clarity. It’s a moral dunghill.

But how quaint can I get? Moral clarity, Europe, and Israel all in the same sentence?

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(This update alerts readers to a major petition against the boycott campaign signed by four Nobel Laureates and more than 850 other academics as well as to comments below this entry from academics opposing the boycott)
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Norway’s University of Trondheim could become the first European university to adopt a formal academic boycott of Israel if a vote by the university’s board on November 12 goes through. The situation is particularly worrying because the rector of the university, Torbjorn Digernes, is (according to some reports) behind the campaign for a boycott himself or at least has been giving a nod of approval to those that are.*

The university, better known as NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), is Norway’s second largest university. Four Nobel Laureates have endorsed a petition (see link below) against the proposed boycott. The petition has been organised by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. There were 863 signatures at the time of writing this updated entry. The petition’s organisers are hoping for 5,000. I would therefore encourage as many readers as possible to implore friends and colleagues in academia to stand up and be counted at this time.

The Nobel Laureates are: Kenneth J. Arrow, Economics, Stanford University; Roald Hoffmann, Chemistry, Cornell University; Steven Weinberg, Physics, University of Texas; Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Physics, Ecole Normale Superieure.

The vote is emerging as a test case of how anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist bigotry is being confronted by anti-racism groups and their sympathisers in Europe. If the boycott proposal is accepted it could set a precedent all across the continent and reignite the academic boycott campaign in Britain in particular.

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