New union urges Israeli academic boycott rejection (From The Argus)

New union urges Israeli academic boycott rejection

7:43am Wednesday 30th May 2007

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Academics are to debate calls for a boycott of Israeli universities today.

The university teachers' union sparked international outrage two years ago when it demanded a boycott of Israel in protest at the treatment of Palestinians.

Delegates will revive the issue at the annual conference of the newly-formed University and College Union in Bournemouth today.

A motion proposed by UCU's Brighton University branch condemns Israel for its "denial of educational rights for Palestinians by invasions, closures, checkpoints, curfews, and shootings and arrests of teachers, lecturers and students".

The motion says academics should "consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions".

The full text of a call from Palestinian groups for an academic boycott of Israel should be circulated to universities and colleges, the motion says.

But Sally Hunt, UCU's new general secretary, criticised the demands.

"I simply do not believe that the majority of UCU members support an academic boycott of Israel or that they believe it should be a major priority for the union," she said.

"Most want us to retain dialogue with trade unionists on all sides - not just those we agree with.

"It's the approach we have in Zimbabwe and Colombia and it's the approach I think we should have here.

"We in this room - including me - do not have the monopoly on wisdom.

"We know that a lot of the best ideas come from our branches and we must take advantage of that. Everybody has a stake in building our new union."

The conference will debate a series of motions designed to minimise the impact of the boycott call.

And delegates will also voice concerns over increasing racial intolerance in universities with rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

UCU replaced the academics' union AUT, which passed the original Israel boycott motion, and college lecturers' union Natfhe after a merger last year.

Last week, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg cancelled his visit to the UK in protest at calls for recent boycotts of Israel by journalists and doctors and today's UCU motion.

The AUT boycott of Israel in 2005 provoked protests from writers and academics around the world, including 21 Nobel prize-winners.

In the face of such widespread opposition, the union eventually overturned the resolution at a special meeting in London later that year.

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