Letter: Israel, Palestine and academic boycotts

Academic boycotts are to our mind unacceptable and counter productive. Apart from their condemnation by international bodies, and general considerations of harming progress in science, the arts and education, such boycotts, whatever their underlying causes, alienate the very people - university academics - who are generally the most active in trying to alleviate these causes. …

We do not agree with those who claim that any criticism of Israeli policies must stem from sinister motives. But when, of all the conflicts in the world today, you choose to single out for condemnation and boycott the Jewish state, and only the Jewish state, we can only repeat the words of the Times editorial that greeted the similarly perverse AUT actions a year ago, that such "actions are an echo of the Nazi ban on Jewish academics, and the general discrimination so common three generations ago". …

Professor Mark Pepys (UCL Medicine) and others, 'The Independent'