Hey, Teacher! (A Partly Political Broadcast)

Am moved to comment on the current anti-Israel furour emanating out of Birmingham Uni. I'm not going to say too much- the battle is being fought there, not on my insignificant pink blog, and anyway I couldn't imagine articulating myself on the matter better than Melanie or even these young gentlemen.

Whatever. There are many ways to work towards solving our messy and complicated regional conflict: I think I'm in a position to declare that a proposed academic boycott is not one of them. To my mind, it merely looks set to be supremely unhelpful and counterproductive on many levels for both sides.

I can't help but think back to how a friend in the ISM once told me that "Israel/Palestine has become the Cause Celeb" for the modern generation. Indeed, one is hard pressed to see the worthy heal-the-world types hot-footing it over to any other dangerous global hotspots in even close to the same numbers, or with similar levels of eagerness to right the wrongdoings of the "evil" locals. Such fervour, as confessed by my ISM-er friend, is clearly alive and well in this case.

I appreciate the need of individuals to take steps to heal the world- truly I do! But I also get irritated when such steps are taken in an uninformed capacity. Sadly, it appears that I can no longer expect anything else.

Sigh. Oh well- the sun is shining...