Although there are counter-arguments to the anti-Israeli posting yesterday, I agree with Jeremy Hunsinger that they are out of place on this list. But since the issue has been brought up, my position is that professional societies should be extraordinarily cautious about encouraging boycotts of universities. I don't believe in collective punishment, even if there was a crime -- and there are different sets of "facts" floating around on this matter. Hence, I have worked a bit to encourage the ending of the boycott. And am glad that it happened. For reasons of the first para, I won't respond to any postings about the boycott -- or Israel -- on this list and urge us all to refocus on AOIR stuff. Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________