UK union to vote on boycott of Israeli academics

From JPost, May. 28, 2006, by TALYA HALKIN ...

A call to boycott Israeli academics is expected to be brought to a vote on Monday by members of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, Britain's largest academic trade union.

The vote is planned for the conclusion of the union's annual conference.... It concerns a motion calling for a boycott of Israeli scholars and academic institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israeli policy in the territories.

...On Friday, The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) ... announced that it condemned the proposed boycott and similarly urged NATFHE to withdraw the motion.
The statement released by the AAAS board of directors said it joined with other organizations "in condemning this proposed boycott as antithetical to the positive role of free scientific inquiry in improving the lives of all citizens of the world, and in promoting cooperation among nations, despite political differences." It added, "Free scientific inquiry and associated international collaborations should not be compromised in order to advance a political agenda unrelated to scientific and scholarly matters."

Bar-Ilan University's International Advisory Board on Academic Freedom also called for an immediate withdrawal of the boycott motion. It published an on-line petition calling on NATFHE members, the academic community and the general public to oppose the boycott, explaining why an academic boycott was wrong. The petition was signed by thousands of international academics.

In another letter that was also published Saturday in The Guardian, however, a group of Palestinian academics applauded the boycott motion.

Last year another British faculty group, The British Association of University Teachers, voted to boycott Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities, charging them with complicity in Israel's "suppression of the Palestinians." The council of the association reversed the decision after objections by leading scholars and academic organizations.

NATFHE and the AUT are due to merge next month and any decisions made by the unions prior to the merger - including a possible NAFTHE vote in favour of boycotting Israeli academics - will be automatically nullified by the merger.

In another, unrelated boycott campaign against Israel, the Ontario division of Canada's largest union voted Saturday to support an international campaign that is boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. Delegates to the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario convention in Ottawa voted overwhelmingly to support the campaign until Israel recognizes "the Palestinians' right to self-determination." The Ontario group [purportedy] represents more than 200,000 workers.