Belgium: Academics call for all-out boycott of Israel (and only Israel)

Anti-Israel Campaign by
Pierre Galand Association
Belgo-Palestinienne Wallonie-Bruxelles)

Coincidental with the commemoration of the first anniversary of the shooting at the Brussels Jewish museum a number of Belgian scholars are calling for the academic boycott of Israel.  The petition has been issued in French, Flemish and English and was published by at least two newspapers, Le Soir and De Standaard.

If a counter-petition denouncing the call for the boycott of Israel were issued, it is fair to assume that, given the intimidation against those who dare to speak out in favour of Israel, nobody would sign it...  that is why you will never see one in Europe. It is highly unlikely that the signatories, many of them Catholics, will put their names to a petition against the persecution and slaughter of Christians in the Arab world.

Sadly,  two of the petitioners (Anya Topolski and Nadia Fadil) had been invited by the Jewish museum to lecture twice on antisemitism...

Two names stand out, both from the Catholic University of Louvain: Olivier De Schutter, a lawyer turned "hunger expert" for the United Nations, and Jean Bricmont who believes that the Holocaust is a lucrative business. 

BACBI: Statement of Principles

We, Belgian academics and intellectuals, support the 2005 Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). We call upon our colleagues in the Belgian academic community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions, by applying the following:

1. Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint project with Israeli institutions and research entities;

2. Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions, not of individual Israeli academics, at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to those institutions;

3. Promote divestment and disinvestment by international academic institutions from Israel and multinational corporations that are instrumental in the systematic violations of international law committed by the state of Israel; More.
 

List of signatories: BELGIAN CAMPAIGN FOR AN ACADEMIC AND CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL (BACBI)

A long-standing Belgian tradition:

The above image featured until recently on the website of the influential Belgian-Palestinian Association (Brussels-Wallonia), headed by Israel-basher Pierre Galand of the Free Université of Brussels. Poster created by Oxfam Belgium and withdrawn by Oxfam International following a worldwide campaign led by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.