For academics, they are awfully dumb
You will recall that as of April 1, the University of Johannesburg is cutting its ties to Ben Gurion University, thereby
endangering South Africa's water supply. Well get a load of
this statement issued by the South Africans on Friday.
In a statement on Friday, Prof. Ihron Rensburg, vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) said “I need to make this quite clear. UJ is not part of an academic boycott of Israel. UJ holds the view that given the current situation in the Middle East the formal institutional agreement between UJ and BGU is an insurmountable obstacle to either institution facilitating a wider dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian academics.”
The statement continued, “it has never been UJ’s intention to sever all ties with BGU, although it may have been the intention of some UJ staff members.
Rather, the UJ Senate voted to bring an end to the formal institutional agreement between the two universities which at this particular time, in the Senate’s view, creates an obstacle to cooperation between academics in Israel and Palestine.”
Huh? Who says academics can't behave like morons?
Labels: academic boycott, BDS, Ben Gurion University, University of Johannesburg
University of Johannesburg cuts ties to Israel
As of April 1, the University of Johannesburg is officially
joining the BDS movement by ending its relationship with Ben Gurion University (Hat Tip:
Russel H).
But the fierce moral urgency of supporting the 'Palestinians' could yet leave South Africa without drinking water. Ben-Gurion University however had been working with UJ on finding a method to clean algae that has infested South Africa's drinking water.
The severing of ties meant the project was likely to come an end, leaving UJ without access to BGU's extensive water expertise.
"There has been quite a lot of scare mongering that if the partnership breaks, South Africa will be confined to bad water quality," Habib said.
"The quality of our water is suffering because we are not spending the type of money on cleaning water that we need to, and not employing skill sets required.
"We can deal with acid rain water in the region if we are prepared to spend money."
...
Habib said individual professors from UJ would be allowed to keep up existing partnerships with BGU.
"That is something for individual academics to determine, but it depends on whether BGU allows this or not."
UJ's severing of ties with came amidst talk of steep water tariff increases and a warning South Africa could run out of water within the next ten years if nothing was done to supplement water resources.
The Environment and Conservation Association has said that by 2015, 80% of South Africa's fresh water would be so badly polluted that no purification process in the country would make it fit for consumption.
The impending disaster that would be created by acid mine drainage, as well as by sewerage and industrial pollution, had on many occasions been brought to the government's attention, with no positive results, the association said.
Someone please tell me that the academics here will at least return the favor and let them drink sea water. Maybe they can even import it from Gaza. Yasser Arafat tried it and said it was pretty good.
Heh.
Labels: Ben Gurion University, drinking water, sea water, University of Johannesburg
You will recall that as of April 1, the University of Johannesburg is cutting its ties to Ben Gurion University, thereby endangering South Africa's water supply. Well get a load of this statement issued by the South Africans on Friday. 
