Haaretz
Shvat 13, 5766
Pressure exerted by Jewish organizations in
the United States has succeeded in preventing an American Association of
University Professors (AAUP) conference, in which a number of supporters
of an academic boycott on Israel were scheduled to take part.
The
AAUP announced Thursday that it was indefinitely postponing the
conference, which was scheduled to take place in Italy next
week.
Some twenty professors were invited to take part in the
conference, less than half of whom openly oppose an academic boycott of
Israel.
Ahead of the conference, the AAUP distributed a collection
of articles, which included an article that had been published in Barnes
Review, a publication that denies the Holocaust.
A number of
attempts were made by Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League
and the Jewish American Congress, to cancel the conference due to the
article and the planned itinerary. The groups condemned the AAUP as well
as the Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation and Rockefeller
Foundation for financing the conference.
AAUP General Secretary
Roger Bowen apologized Thursday and explained that, "The article had been
collected during our research for the conference. But it was never
intended for distribution to the participants or indeed to anyone else."
The AAUP recalled the article, informed all conference
participants of the move and promised that, "nothing of this sort will
happen again."
The article in question was pubished in the Barnes
Review and claims that Zionist movement leaders tried to advance the
establishment of the Nazi regime in the 1930's, in hopes that "the tension
between the Germans and the Jews would lead to massive immigration to
Palestine."
The Jewish organizations expressed satisfaction with
the apology, but called for the cancellation or postponement of the
conference.