The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) postponed a conference sponsored by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations on academic boycotts and academic freedom, planned for February 13th to 17th in . The list of invited participants included many who are active in the boycott campaign and the wider effort to delegitimize the existence of Israel, in accordance with the Durban agenda. The Ford Foundation was widely criticized for its funding of many of the NGOs that fueled anti-Israel activity at the UN Durban Conference in 2001 and was quick to respond to critics who said that the AAUP conference promised to become an "academic Durban."

NGO Monitor has played a vital role in monitoring Ford since Durban, and influenced the recent decision. Editor Gerald Steinberg wrote directly to Ford’s President Susan Berresford (read letter) and was interviewed in the Jerusalem Post:

"By inviting some of the most virulent supporters of boycotts and sanctions, the AAUP conference would have turned into another ideological effort to place Israel on trial," Prof. Steinberg told the Post.

"The contrast between the proclaimed objectives designed to explore the issue of academic freedom, and the preponderance of obsessive anti-Israel activists was untenable," Prof. Steinberg added. "To their credit, the funding agencies, including the Ford Foundation, recognized this contradiction and the dangers that the AAUP conference would have reiterated the slogans and NGO agenda of the 2001 Durban conference."

For More Information

 

 

Back to February 2006 Digest