Israel, Europe and the academic boycott

From competing in the Eurovision song contest to participating in the European Research Area, Israel is beneficially treated as a European nation. Yet its violations of international law against the Palestinians, attested in UN resolutions and in contravention of Europe's own humanitarian conventions, attract no international sanctions. The academic boycott of Israel, following the wide-ranging boycott of South Africa that helped to publicise and end the iniquities of apartheid, aims to focus attention on issues of human rights, in the hope of securing a just peace in Palestine/Israel. The parameters of the boycott and the opposition mounted against it are explored here by two of its leading proponents, even as they expose the double standards to which Israeli and Palestinian students and academics are subjected.