IV
107TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. RES. 499
Condemning attempts to boycott Israeli scientific institutions and scholars.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JULY 24, 2002
Mr. CAPUANO submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on Education and the Workforce
RESOLUTION
Condemning attempts to boycott Israeli scientific institutions
and scholars.
Whereas scientific progress and the advancement of human
knowledge depend upon the free exchange of ideas;
Whereas peace everywhere depends upon the ability of indi-
viduals and governments to recognize, respect, and dis-
cuss our differences;
Whereas an organization calling itself the Coordination of
Scientists for a Just Peace in the Near East (‘‘Coordina-
tion des Scientifiques pour une Paix Juste au Proche-
Orient’’) has appealed for an international boycott of
Israeli scientific institutions;
Whereas more than 700 European academics have already
endorsed this international boycott;
•HRES 499 IH
Whereas 2 Israeli scholars, Gideon Toury and Miriam Schles-
inger, the latter of whom is a former head of Amnesty
International in Israel, were fired from the board of The
Translator, published under the auspices of the Univer-
sity of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology,
for no reason other than their nationality;
Whereas Donald Kennedy, President Emeritus of Stanford
University, warned in a June 7, 2002, editorial that
Science, the journal of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, would, if necessary, impose
‘‘penalties with regard to future publication’’ upon con-
tributors who refused reasonable requests to share data
or materials with Israeli researchers;
Whereas Professor Stephen Greenblatt of Harvard Univer-
sity, the President of the Modern Language Association
of America, in an open letter dated June 26, 2002, de-
plored the Manchester firings as ‘‘particularly grotesque’’
because the journal in question was ostensibly devoted to
intercultural communication;
Whereas a petition initiated by scholars at Harvard Univer-
sity and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology de-
nounced attempts to turn the scientific community into
a political battlefield as ‘‘irresponsible and counter-pro-
ductive,’’ and quickly gathered support from 70 of the
most illustrious names in mathematics and physical
science here and abroad;
Whereas another petition, initiated by professors at the Uni-
versity of Chicago, states their belief that a cultural and
scientific boycott of Israel is ‘‘immoral, dangerous, and
misguided, and indirectly encourages the terrorist mur-
derers in their deadly deeds’’, and more than 2,500 schol-
ars from all over the world have signed this document,
•HRES 499 IH
which was published in the British newspaper, The
Guardian; and
Whereas other campaigns that insist upon academic freedom
and dialogue among all the world’s peoples gain adher-
ents daily: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that—
(1) attempts to boycott Israeli scholars will nei-
ther advance truth nor achieve peace;
(2) attempts to treat Israeli scholars as pariahs
cannot fail to recall horrifying precedents such as
the Nazi effort to ‘‘purify’’ German universities
(make them ‘‘Judenrein’’) by expelling Jewish stu-
dents and faculty and the Stalinist slaughter of Yid-
dish intellectuals; and
(3) scholars in the United States and abroad
are to be commended for their prompt and resolute
defense of their Israeli colleagues and for their com-
mitment to the free exchange of ideas.
Æ