"Dear Bob Geldof,
Your decision to accept an honorary doctorate from Israel's Ben-Gurion University (BGU) has come as a shock to many of those who respect your humanitarian activities. Before you travel to Israel, there are a number of points that you might consider.
You might consider that David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding father, believed that Jews were "more intelligent and diligent" than Arabs and hence should receive higher wages, and supported compulsory transfer of indigenous Palestinians from an ethnic Jewish state: "I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." Ben-Gurion, after whom the university offering you this doctorate is named, thereby set down the template for an Israeli state premised on racism and ethnic cleansing.
If you believe that BGU, being a university, somehow stands above all such matters, then you might consider that South African academics from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) have called for BGU to be boycotted because "by maintaining links to both the Israeli Defence Force... and the arms industry BGU structurally supports and facilitates the Israeli occupation... BGU is also complicit in the general discrimination at Israeli universities against Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel." (1)
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