Just what does he fear from a free exchange of ideas? To pick an example, would he block Australians from learning about Israeli work to develop a new universal flu vaccine by linking flu virus proteins to teach the immune system to make antibodies and killer cells that will attack the virus, now in the early stages of testing?
Or what about the work of Gideon Grader (one of the visitors in the exchange program that Lynch attacks) on the development of processes that enable clean energy extraction from non-carbon fuels, a boon to a world where carbon-based fuels are becoming scarcer by the decade?
David D. Knoll, Coogee, NSW
UNIVERSITIES are supposed to be bastions of free speech but not so at the University of Sydney where, of all people, the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Jake Lynch wants to stop Israeli scientists from attending a forum because it might "offend Muslim students".
Perhaps Lynch needs reminding that there are more Israeli Nobel prizes for science among its 6 million Jews than in the billion-strong Islamic world. One of their few winners was for the Nobel Peace prize, Yasser Arafat.
Randy Rose, Hobart, Tas
THE call by Jake Lynch from the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies to shut down an Israel research forum is astonishingly illiberal.
I always thought that the role of academics was to promote rather than silence academic freedom.
Philip Mendes, Kew, Vic
WHAT have we come to when medical researchers are discouraged from speaking at Australian universities on the basis of their ethnicity for fear of causing offence? Why is it that in some minds anything linked to Israel, that Middle Eastern country of freedom, is deemed to be bad?
It is very disappointing that members of our so-called enlightened academia would condone restrictions on academic freedoms because of anti-Semitism.
Cory Bernardi, Senator for South Australia, Kent Town, SA
I SEE Jake Lynch is irritated by the prospect of an Israel research forum. This is despite the fact that the webpage of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies says: "The centre aims to facilitate dialogue between individuals, groups or communities who are concerned with conditions of positive peace, whether in interpersonal relationships, community relations, within organisations and nations, or with reference to international relations".
One of his complaints is that Arabic is generally not the language of instruction in Israeli universities. Of course, together with Hebrew, Arabic is an official language of Israel. No doubt, Lynch would therefore support the use of native languages for instruction in Australian universities, as well as elsewhere.
Lawrence J. Doctors, Dover Heights, NSW
JAKE Lynch argues that the University of Sydney risks reputational damage. On the contrary, its reputation will be damaged if it responds positively to Lynch's morally and politically repugnant demands.
As an academic I find the idea of academics demanding a boycott of universities in Israel and Israeli academics unprofessional and immoral.
Whatever happened to the idea that open debate, that argument and counter-argument is crucial to academic and political discourse?
Israel is undeniably the only true democracy in the Middle East. It is indefensible to call for a boycott of any description against such a nation.
Bill Anderson, Surrey Hills, Vic
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