Thursday, May 26, 2005

UK Academic Union to reconsider boycott

From Jerusalem Post
By MATI WAGNER AND JPOST STAFF

British Lecturers will hold another vote Thursday on its decision to boycott Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities. Britain's 40,000-member Association of University Teachers voted last month to boycott the academic institutions for actions that it said undermined Palestinian rights and academic freedom.

"More than a thousand professors from all over the world have expressed strong opposition to the boycott," Bar- Ilan President Prof. Moshe Kaveh said on Monday. "Nobel laureates, professors who are leaders in their fields, non-Jews, all have shown their support."

The University of Haifa was boycotted for purportedly restricting the academic freedom of Ilan Pappe, a senior lecturer in the department of political science. However...Pappe admits AUT's claims against Haifa are baseless and that the boycott's real aim is to stop Israeli 'occupation.'

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