Petition Against South African Universities boycotting

We interrupt this blogging hiatus with an important announcement... 

Recently, hundreds of academics signed a petition calling on University of Johannesburg (UJ) to cut its academic ties with Ben Gurion University. Ben Gurion university had agreed to provide UJ with the expertise to clean algae infested water and save thousands of South Africans. Officially UJ voted to continue its ties with Ben Gurion however it imposed such stringent conditions that they are impossible to fulfill. This has prompted universities around the country to assess their ties with Israeli academia. As such we have launched the Coalition for Clean Water to combat this growing phenomenon and emphasize the benefits ties with Israel provide. We have launched a petition at: http://www.petitiononline.com/cleanuni/petition.html We hope to gain international support. Your assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated, please if you could send the petition to your mailing list or publicize it in any other way, we may be able to prevent a South African boycott of Israel. Looking forward to your response. Rafael Eliasov Vice National Chairperson South African Union of Jewish Students www.saujs.co.za

Following the egrigious decision taken by the UJ (University of Johannesburg) Senate, several other universities have added their names calling for the cutting of all ties with Israeli universities, including Rhodes (Saleem Badat), the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan university (Derrick Swartz) and the Durban University of Technology (Dan Ncayiyana).

The UJ boycott is probably the work of an Israel hating trifecta at the UJ, led by Stephen Friedman, Adam Habib (vice-chancellor) and Farid Esack.

• Here's a great piece by Jeremy Gordin that literally rips Friedman to shreds: What's Stephen Friedman got against the Jews?
• Also see this piece by former anti-apartheid activist Rhoda Khadalie: Universities blinded by political correctness

In case you thought that this radical action was driven by a real human rights viewpoint, then check out this article at Politics Web about the University of Johannesburg's strong ties with a university from Belarus: UJ in bed with Belarusian university. 

The University of Johannesburg recently made the headlines when its Senate decided to terminate its relationship with Ben Gurion University, in Israel, if various stringent demands were not met. Curiously, UJ has not acted with such alacrity in re-examining its relationship with the Belarusian National Technical University (BNTU), located in Minsk, Belarus - the country with the worst human rights record in Europe