A British pro-Palestinian group has begun plans to launch a new academic boycott of Israeli universities.
The British Committee for Universities of Palestine (Bricup) says that it wants to re-open the debate on the issue, which was closed following the rejection of such a boycott by the Association of University Teachers in May this year.
The AUT had initially passed a motion urging its members to boycott Bar Ilan university in Tel Aviv and Haifa university on the grounds that they are supportive of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian areas.
However, the boycott was rescinded at an emergency meeting after the AUT was subjected to intense international pressure.
SOAS meeting
Hilary Rose, one of the architects of the academic boycott and a founder of Bricup, said the group is organizing pro-boycott meetings at universities around the UK. On Friday a two-day conference debating the issue will be held at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
"The boycott is moving on, extremely well judged by the amount of support coming into us and the willingness of universities to set up meetings to discuss it," she says. Meetings so far scheduled for this term include Birmingham, York, University of East London and Sussex,” Rose told the Guardian newspaper.
Lynn Segal, a spokesman for the Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace UK who are organizing the SOAS conference, said the aim is to “try to prevent the total polarisation in this debate”
Segal said: “We want to look at the way in which different racisms are exploited and used, so that anyone who criticises Israel is anti-Semitic and anyone who doesn’t support the total full-withdrawal of Israel is accused of failure to support the Palestinians, of Islamaphobia.”
Plans rejected
The plans were firmly rejected by the Campaign Group for Academic Freedom, a body set up by the Board of Deputies of British Jews to fight the previous boycott campaign.
Referring to the rejection of the AUT motion, a spokesman for CGAF noted that “this tactic had already been debated, discredited and dismissed”.
The spokesman said: “The original AUT motions were founded on demonstrably false accusations against the universities in question and were flawed from the start.
“It is clear that those with a particular agenda will try to use this tactic again and we cannot be complacent, but theirs is an argument that has only very recently been considered and rejected.”
The rector of Bar-Ilan University Yosi Yeshurun said he was unsurprised at the launch of the new campaign, but has held a series of meetings on the issue with colleagues.
Yeshurun told the Jerusalem Post that while “the BRICUP threat is less real than the AUT campaign, our unpleasant experience with British attempts to boycott us has led us to convene, and we will carefully follow the developments.
“We have our thumb on the pulse and we will react if the need arises,” he added.