This is a cross-post from Ben Cohen of the Z-Word blog
Now this is where tragedy turns to farce. Sari Hanafi is an academic at the American University of Beirut. He recently visited the UK to participate in “Israel Apartheid Week,” which gave him a platform to promote the recent book he co-authored on the “anatomy of Israeli rule in the occupied Palestinian territories.” Halfway through his visit, Hanafi was forced to return to Beirut in order to face a furious gathering of AUB faculty and students who denounced him for collaborating with Israel. The basis for this charge? The co-authors of Hanafi’s book were two Israelis, Michael Givon and Adi Ophir. Because of this heinous act of betrayal, an Arab academic whose book is energetically promoted at a global event which marks the highlight of the boycott movement’s calendar finds himself condemned for breaking the very same boycott through the very same book.
More on this here and here. Most instructive is this statement put out by Hanafi’s supporters – “We strongly sense that a normative and literal application of the rules may sometimes produce paradoxical outcomes” – which is another way of saying that the boycott can make you look extremely silly indeed.
But don’t take my word for it. Here are the Pythons:
