The students' demands - a gift to the Israeli right

The Israel/Palestine conflict

Right to protest at Swedish universities but wrong to demand isolation of Israeli academics

Summer Al Naher

This is a cultural article that is part of Aftonbladet's opinion journalism.

Updated 10.33 | Published 10.13

Swedish students in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Lund, Uppsala and Örebro have started protests against Israel. Here flags, tents and placards with demands at Lund University on Tuesday. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Now the  Gaza protests at universities in the USA have reached Sweden.

When the war devours unimaginable amounts of Palestinian civilian casualties, it is comforting to see Swedish students react. Together, they have set up tent camps at several Swedish universities, with the hope of putting an end to the war.

So far so good, but the students' demands risk going wrong. When the protests demand that the Swedish universities "end all academic cooperation with Israel", as it says on one of the banners at Stockholm University, it risks being counterproductive.

If there is anywhere where progressive ideas for peace between Palestinians and Israelis are discussed, it is in Israeli universities.

In December, I had the opportunity to meet Professor Oren Yiftachel when he visited KTH in Stockholm. He teaches geography at Ben-Gurion University and is one of Israel's most radical and pragmatic voices. Yiftachel was formerly chairman of B'Tselem and is one of the founders of the organization "A land for all". His books and academic texts often deal with colonialism, ethnocracy and "creeping apartheid". You see, this man is a thorn in the side of the Israeli government. When we met, he told us that the government tried to intervene in the university's work to get rid of troublesome academics. Yiftachel lives under constant threat of death. He is hated by ethno-nationalists and right-wing extremists.

It is people like him who risk being double-punished through demands for isolation. A ban had not allowed him to come to KTH and I had not been able to hear him talk about the very movement that wants to end the war, the discrimination against Palestinians and the apartheid-like system that Yiftachel talks about.

I understand why  the students are calling for a boycott. Once the method works, it sets off domino effects that influence decision makers. And of course it is grateful that someone does something when the international community has failed to stop the war. But a general boycott that strikes blindly risks harming the very forces that want the same thing as the students. The Israeli right, which views academia as left-wing strongholds - with the exception of the right-wing universities - will see the boycott as a gift. But even at the Technion, which is close to the armed forces, there are radical figures like Yosef Jabareen.

The Israeli and Palestinian peace movement is too often made invisible, both in Israel and in Sweden. We risk further contributing to silencing those voices.