"Not just lip service": boycott leader's hypocrisy is old news

The Jewish Chronicle and some blogs, including the usually very savvy Normblog, have been running the story of Israel boycott leader Omar Barghout's hypocrisy as if it was news that he'd enrolled as a PhD student at Tel-Aviv University, and had done so recently.

I posted about Barghouti's PhD enrolment back in March 2006, when I showed he was closely linked to the magazine Dance Europe's decision to ban reviews of an Israeli dance company as part of the pro-Palestinian cultural boycott of all Israel academics and cultural events.

I also linked to an article by Barghouti in the notorious Counterpunch, written in 2002. 

It showed that he was listing his ongoing PhD studies at Tel-Aviv University way back then. Yes, in 2002.

Now, I'm a never-completed-my-PhD veteran myself. But seven years .... well, it's certainly a bit late in the day to be reporting his enrolment as news.

Barghouti is one of the leaders of the present Fatah Palestinian faction-led boycott movement, started in 2004, when he was already at least two years into his PhD studies. Whilst it calls for a complete boycott of all Israeli academic institutions, except for the purpose of meetings to campaign against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, Barghouti ignores the boycott when it comes to his own self-improvement.

What is news is that there is a petition to get Tel-Aviv University to expel him, and those who've supported it have given the fact of his PhD enrolment there wider publicity.

Tel-Aviv University has commendably shown its own opposition to boycotts and sanctions by refusing to eject Barghouti because of his political stance, even though that stance is designed to damage the University and Israeli academia in general. But are they up to the academic mark in allowing a PhD student to stay on the roll quite so long without delivering?

You can see Barghouti in full flow in the clip above, delivering standard Fatah Stalinist-style denunciations of Israeli "genocide", "apartheid" etc in the smoothest and coolest of tones. 

There are so many ironies here that it's difficult to pick out which to focus on.

The richest is perhaps Barghouti calling in the clip in late 2008 for "an end to lip service" on the importance of the EU taking boycott measures against Israel, whilst now stating that it's "a personal matter" that he's continuing his seven years of PhD studies at Tel-Aviv University and refusing to discuss that any further.

UPDATE: You can never be ironic enough. Here's the one of the  Hamas and Islamic Jihad clerics bitterly condemning Palestinian dance troupes like the one Barghouti leads, who have just taken part in a festival of Palestinian dance in Ramallah:

Sheikh Hassan al-Jouju, head of Gaza's Sharia courts, said that the Palestinians reject with disgust the use of Jerusalem's name as part of "this lawless festival".

 

"Jerusalem is sacred and pure, and its status is derived from what Allah has given to it, and it does not need this nonsense. It needs courageous national standings which will thwart the Judaization schemes and the digging under the al-Aqsa Mosque."

 

He went on to ask, "Why didn't we hear the voice of the mufti and the head of the Sharia courts in the West Bank in light of these actions?

,,,,those who approved this event, who let these groups dance on the wounds of our people, on our suffering and the cries of pain of the al-Aqsa Mosque, those who approved this event are not Palestinians.

And in case you think that these clerics do not represent the view of Hamas, who Clare Short and her friends in Conflicts Forum are so keen for the British government to talk to, here's the view of a senior Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council:

Senior Hamas member Hamed Bitawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that "this festival contradicts Islamic law. The Palestinian nation is a nation of jihad and resistance, and this festival damages its image and the memory of the martyrs and their blood. Shame will follow those who approved these cheap festivals."

So it seems the regime in Gaza are firm in their dedication to boycott not just the leader of the supposedly national Palestinian boycott-Israel campaign, but the very cultural activities he and the Palestinian Authority are so keen to promote. 

I suspect that they're also less than impressed by his seven year continuing PhD study marathon at Tel-Aviv University.