Twenty Years ago when I was at the London School of Economics Palestinian students beat up a woman jewish speaker in the students union. Things have moved on. Maybe next year the academics can vote to support Iran with academic help for their nuclear program: Then the union might be a bit closer to its Nazi aims of destroying the jewish culture.

What kind of a paranoid world does Zened live in? Just hold your horses a moment. The UCU secretary said "I simply do not believe that the majority of UCU members support an academic boycott of Israel" and she said "Most want us to retain dialogue with trade unionists on all sides - not just those we agree with." So there is no need to start mouthing off about rightwing ideas of unions wanting to "destroy the jewish culture"! To be honest, it is the class perspective and fighting trade unions that will ultimately solve the crisis in the Middle East. The people suffering there are ordinary working class people, on all sides! If these people can unite and hold onto the real issue that connect people across all borders, issues like education, health and safety, they can rise above the nationalistic and religious divisions that people like Zened hold dear, oppose their failed leaderships and begin to fight for peace and equality on all sides.

I applaud the Union. Something needs to be done to eradicate the bullies and Nazi behaviour in Israel.

The Palestinian people live in utter poverty no-thnks to the giant multi-billion dollar wall which towers and surrounds their land.

Something needs to be done immediately. Have they learnt nothing from World War II? Seems very odd that there is so much coverage of the atrocities back then... but what seems strange is, that these people are carrying out the same evil on Palestinians!

Very strange indeed! It makes one wonder.

Keith, the union will not pass such a devisive motion. Yes, the Israeli ruling class has treated the Palestinian people with brutal contempt, but would a union boycott achieve anything other than creating yet another division? No conflict has ever been solved by using boycotts! We must remember that the people who continue this conflict, and those who order the deadly acts of violence, sit in safety in their bomb-proof bunkers surrounded by their rich friends who buy them weapons while thousands of ordinary people die. The only way to stop the bullies and the Nazi behaviour is to unite the people who are suffering: the ordinary working class people, on both sides! Only by having a class perspective will the problems in the Middle East be resolved. There is no other way.

Peter. I think Keith's post shows that I do not live in a Paranoid world: 'Have they learnt nothing from World War II?'(...after most of them were murdered in ovens)'. That is a teacher talking!: Thank you Keith for being honest.
It is not about what the leader of the Union thinks the members will vote for. It is the fact there is a vote at all.
Not everything is about the class struggle.
You know Marx came up with his theory to try to get away from anti-semitism.
Racism is an illness of the mind and soul.
I am an internationalist Peter, I currently work in Liberia, world's newest democracy. I hold dear to me what minority cultures want to retain. Jews have a minority culture in the world that people like Keith and others of you want to destroy. It is an old story.

Zened, I cannot see anything in the posts above that has led you to infer that 'Keith and others' wish to destroy Jewish culture. Please do not present opposition to Israeli aggression as anti-semitism. The state of Israel and Jewish faith/culture are not one and the same and by conflating the two you are denying people the freedom to legitimately criticise a government. Don't forget, also, that many of us who object to Israeli aggression towards Palestinians, are Jewish themselves.

Well firstly, Peter, they did it; they voted for it.
AC's post: Anti-Semites try to reassure themselves they are not racist by trying to attack the Jewish State, which is the only defender of Jewish people. I do not argue the State is perfect or free of wrong doing. However I point out the way the Union has somehow picked Israel from the Zimbabwes, North Korea's and Iran's of the world. It is this that signals anti-semitism to the untrained eye. Israel has a democracy, that is why you will find divergent Jewish opinion. Some Jewish people have founded whole new sciences theories and world religions to get away from anti-semitism. Jewish people have learned to be appologists.
Now you guys have an insane referendum to explain to the world of academics.
Seems I wasn't so paranoid after all Peter.

Israel is not the only defender of Jewish people. Amongst many other liberal democratic nations, the US and UK governments conspicuously defend the rights of minority religious and cultural groups. Of course pockets of anti-semitism exist in these countries but so does racism and intolerance of every description. You could certainly construct an arguement that, currently in the west, Islamophobia is a more potent presence than anti-semitism. You are right that Jewish opinion is divided on Israeli politics and many other issues - debate and discussion is one of the greatest facets of Jewish thought. Do not deny Jewish people their cultural heritage as open minded thinkers and philosophers by casting all Jews as conspiracy theorists or apologists - this would be to let the anti-semites win and kill all open debate

AC: No state has defended Jewish people. Even the british and americans allowed the holocaust to continue through its most productive two years. Islamaphobia is a direct result of the protestations of Islamic extremists - calling me and other like me 'infidel' and killing people in the underground. It is the BNP, not me, who will take advantage of this. UCU is not an open minded academic body - it is psedo-political. I would like to ask you one thing: Will you promise not to use any new inventions that Israeli (or jewish) academics discover while the boycott is on?

Zened, firstly I am uncomfortable that you seem to be presenting a justification for Islamaphobia. It seems to be that the word itself implies an irrational hatred or fear (that is what a phobia is) and, as we know that the vast majority of muslims are law abiding and peaceful, it would surely be deeply discriminatory to associate all of Islam with a minority of extremists. Be careful about making wild or apochryphal claims about a religion or race - remember we've been there before..Secondly, UCU does not propose a boycott of Israeli academics,many of whom admirably oppose the effective appartheid of Israel, but a boycott of institutions. For what its worth I'm not sure that I think a boycott is the right course of action but I do feel that an appropriate message must be sent to the Israeli government that discrimination, racial hatred and intolerance is unacceptable, wherever it resides.

AC: Please do not infer a justification, when I was implying causality. We have a political system in this country with a Foreign Office. That Office is the legitimate mechanism for dealing with other Nation-States. A labour Union is not qualified to interfere on one side against another in a foreign country. I know this does not fit with the Marxist Internationalist paradigm of world politics. However we live in the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. Balance of thought and Diplomacy are part of the effort our State makes to influence others to behave the way we think is correct. Whatever your opinions, right or wrong; the arguments and debates used to usurp the purposes of the Union in what can fairly be described as a partisan manner, have damaged the UK and the UK’s academic reputation. For all of you political activists in the Union: How about you stop teaching and stand for election to parliament. Election to public office is a qualification that gives you a right to lead people’s political agenda. A teacher’s degree is no such qualification, you are not properly tested.

Zened, I find it depressing that you are resigned to 'live in the world as it is, not as we would like it to be'. The legal and political mechanisms of those nations, such as the UK, which do not have written constitutions arose and continue to develop around the constructs of precedents. This has created a space for organisations, institutions and lobbys to challenge and influence policy and has resulted in a system that has written in the flexibity to listen to and respond to its constituents. If we have a righteous greivance we can fight for and effect change. Those people who campaigned for and supported boycotts in South Africa (including those of and by academic institutions), helped to dismantle apartheid and demonstrated that peaceful, democratic activism yields positive results. Who but the most churlish or cynical could argue with this?

AC: (Apologies to others for us trolling here). I did not say I was resigned to live in the world as it is. I simply meant to distinguish between reality and utopia. You raise several issues, which need a depth of response: You talk of inadequate state ‘constructs of precedents’. In simple terms the state was formed by ‘trial and error’ over time. The most qualified people of each generation add to the development of legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. One important aspect of this is respect of the Reciprocal Right of Territorial Sovereignty between Sovereign States (something the Union ignores with regard to Israel). I repeat, the Union was not founded for, nor is qualified or structured to, act politically in the international arena. The members may of course vote for anything they like, and can even be absurd. I do not for a minute suggest that well-intentioned people should not work for the betterment of the world. I do not argue that boycott had a positive effect to end apartheid; which of course I agree was a good thing to end. However, the comparison of Israel to the South Africa’s Apartheid regime is what I mean by making ‘unqualified judgements’. This is a Sophist jump. It is Islam that described Jews as dogs and monkeys, not the other way around. It is Islam that has historically forcibly converted Jews. You will not find a single case of a Jew forcing an Islamic person to become a Jew. Catholics had a whole inquisition of this. Next you will be talking of the occupation. You will not refer to the territories as they are: ‘legally disputed’ you will refer to them as ‘illegally occupied’, as they exist in your utopia and in islamicists propaganda. There is a war going on, there has been for centuries. If you know your history, Jews built Jerusalem millennia before Christianity and Islam, right where it is today. In 1948 it was rebuilt for the third or fourth time (depending on what you call a destruction). From the time the Romans destroyed Israel through the Crusader, Ottoman and British rule, Jews tried to return there to live. Meanwhile Jews were butchered across Europe, a long time before 1948, ’67 or ‘73. With the rights of national self-determination a state was declared in 1948 in an area smaller than greater London. Several other Nation States refuse to recognise its existence and have attacked it several times. Iran has recently threatened to destroy Israel in a Mahdist fit of messianic pique. It is in these delicate strategic circumstances, and in the light of the now questionable holocaust, that the Union weighs in against Israel and for the Palestinians. Have you thought of the consequences if Israel is dismantled the way you suggest with your South African metaphor? This is the stated aim of several anti-Israeli/Zionist

/Jewish/Semitic groups. The entire criticism of Israel is based on a key set of assumptions: The existence of Israel is The Problem. It should not exist. It is illegitimate. (For if Israel has the right to exist it also has the right to defend itself). The Palestinians have a right to exist too. However the Union makes no analysis or connection of the Hashemite Dictatorship in what was trans-Jordan (now Jordan), over an eighty per cent Palestinian population. One democratic election in Jordan and you have a Palestinian State. You know Millions of Jews were forced to leave their homes in 1948 as well? Have you ever been to Israel of the West Bank? The situation is more complex than a labour union in England is equipped to understand or resolve. The one sided critique of Israel sets the Union apart as one organisation incapable of neutrality in the matter. Most foreigners will take this to mean British academics are partial, biased and incapable of neutrality on this issue. The fact that the Union has representatives who do not respect the Sovereignty of the State of Israel is now self-evident. So whether or not the Union intended to be anti-Israeli (which under these circumstances Jews can clearly interpret as an anti-Semitic attack), it’s vote and policy is in sympathy with the most extreme demands of the anti-Israel movement:

The Union will basically tell the Israeli academic Institutions:

Either

‘Make your government submit to legally non-binding United Nations General Assembly (read Islamic states) demands and dismantle the area of control you have, stop checking Palestinians for suicide bombs, and submit your holy city – which we and the Islamicists have taken from you for centuries to share with us’

or else

‘We throw you to the wolves’.

This is why the Union is being painted as anti-Semitic, partial and an embarrassment to serious academics.

The vote of the UCU delegates was anti-Semitic to be sure! And a time when rockets are being indiscrinately fired into Israeli towns from Gaza, it shows inhumanity and hatred to the extreme. The vote is shameful!

What has annoyed Israeli academics, and Israelis generally about this boycott is that it is so obviously ignoring the facts on the ground. These basic facts include for instance that for the last decade Israelis have voted in elections, in which Arabs also have the vote (apartheid?), for political parties that wish to end the occupation and in favour of forming a Palestinian state.

-that Israel has withdrawn from Gaza only to be greeted by an intensification of indiscriminate deadly Palestinian rocket attacks from this "liberated" territory which was immediately ransacked by gunmen who destroyed functioning industrial areas to get better rocket firing positions-but only Israel is responsible for the unemployment and dire economy in Gaza, according to the UCU.

-that Palestinian gunmen ransacked Gaza University, and kidnapped UN and European volunteer teachers, but the UCU found no room to comdemn this attack on Palestinian education.

- Israel observed to the letter a 7 month ceasefire in Gaza, whilst the Palestinians continued to fire rockets on an almost daily basis. But the UCU portrays Israel as the only aggressor, and the Palestinians as the only victims.

-That leaving the West Bank will risk a similar barrage of rocket attacks on Israel's central densly populated area which is just 9 miles wide.

- That Hamas itself has said repeatedly that it is not interested in ending the occupation, but only in Israel's distruction (in Arabic), and may consider a temporary ceasefire as a concession (when speaking in English).

-that more Palestinians have been killed by other Plaestinians this year than by Israelis, and that many injured Palestinians are given free medical care in Israeli hospitals

In short Israel wishes to end the occupation, but Hamas is prolonging it by creating a situation in which it is impossible for Israel to withdraw. Then they and the UCU complain about the continuing occupation!

The UCU should be embarassed about its superficial approach the the whole Israel/Palestine question and one can only hope that the individual college branches will show better judgement.