It is not often that American academics step up in defense of Israel. So it was refreshing to see that nearly three hundred American University presidents signed the American Jewish Committee’s petition that appeared in a full page New York Times advertisement yesterday. The petition’s headline, written by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, read “Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours, Too,” referring to a British University and College Union proposal to “cut off relations with Israeli academic institutions because of concerns about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.” It is slightly comforting to see that there are academics in this world more radical than our own.