Boycotters still strong at NTNU

From Tarjei Johannessen Vågstøl's thesis on the Norwegian Palestine-movement, page 63

Iran allows its women to be stoned to death. North Korea holds hundreds of thousands of its own people in concentration camps. But at NTNU, a strong clique of academics insist upon boycotting Israel, which scores higher than her neighboring states on all democratic traits.

NTNU’s newspaper Universitetsavisa reports that Jon Øivind Eriksen disagrees with Minister Tora Aasland, and claims that an NTNU boycott will be in accordance with government politics, such as Minister Halvorsen’s decision to divest from Elbit. Mr. Eriksen also points out that NTNU has led before, in the boycotts of South-Africa and China.

Universititsavisa also reports on how Professor Astrid Lægreid speaks out in support of a boycott.

Universitetsavisa portrays both Mr.Eriksen and Ms.Lægreid in a very balanced manner. When Universitetsavisa interviewed Kristian Tau from this site (NIJ), they gave the interview a heading saying “You are being observed”.  Still, mustn’t grumble.

So what is the status as of now? We have twelve people on the board of directors. Of these rector Digernes has stated that he is against a boycott. Mr.Ådne Cappelen has likewise, in an email to Professor Leslie Wagner of Oxford University, stated that he is against a boycott. Chairwoman Marit Arnstad has said no to boycott. Karin Röding has said the same. That makes four nays. In addition to this we have Minister Aasland’s rather lukewarm resistance of a boycott.

Seeing as how there are twelve members of the board, NTNU might still actually determine to boycott Israel. If they do it will not be a random event, but a goal the Palestine-Lobby has been working against for a long time. Indeed, it is now forty years since Nils Butenschøn ran for presidency of the Palestinakomitee with the vision of winning entire parties and organizations for Palestine.