What the BDSers don't want you to know about academic freedom

Israel-haters like to claim that Israel infringes on academic freedom and this is why scholarly associations must boycott Israel.

Sure, they say, there might be other countries that aren't so great in that area, but - you have to start somewhere.

Academic Freedom Monitor tracks examples of attacks on higher education worldwide. Here are the number of incidents for all countries reported since January 2015:

Turkey	11
Venezuela	7
Myanmar (Burma)	6
Thailand	6
Egypt	5
Malaysia	5
Yemen	5
Bangladesh	4
Pakistan	4
India	3
South Africa	3
Sudan	3
Ethiopia	2
Iraq	2
Kenya	2
Korea, South (ROK)	2
Mozambique	2
Nigeria	2
United Arab Emirates	2
United States	2
Bahrain	1
Belarus	1
Burundi	1
Côte d'Ivoire	1
Cuba	1
Ecuador	1
Indonesia	1
Iran	1
Kuwait	1
Mexico	1
Morocco	1
Palestine (OPT)	1
Russia	1
Syria	1
Zimbabwe	1

Israel isn't listed. (They did have a couple of entries from 2014 when Israeli forces entered campuses while desperately searching for the kidnapped teens who were later found to have been murdered.)

So why is Israel held up as the prototypical example of violating academic freedom again?

Oh yeah, because it is Israel, and the normal rules don't apply.

(h/t Bupkes)

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