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| Academic Israel boycott debate set to return
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Protest against university boycott in London
Photo: EJP
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The debate over an academic boycott of Israel is set to return at the end of this month after the UK's largest university teacher's union said it will discuss two motions on the issue at its annual conference.
The first of the proposals to be debated at the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) event calls for academic responsibility noting “the continuing Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices”.
It calls on union members to “consider their own responsibility for ensuring equity and non-discrimination in contacts with Israeli educational institutions or individuals and the appropriateness of a boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies”.
And a second motion calls for the protection and support of Palestinian academic institutions “in the face of continual attacks by Israel’s government”.
It reads: “The conference condemns the hysterical reporting of the result by most of the British news media and the outrageous bias shown by UK government statements against the outcome of a democratic process”.
The motion is in the form of a “silent boycott” to ensure that if a boycott is passed, individuals will not be identified, the union will not be seen as a promoter of a boycott and to avoid any legal proceedings or accusations that union funds are misused.
The conference will be held on May 27 – 29.
AUT to merge with NATFHE
This week the Association of University Teachers (AUT) is holding its annual conference. Last year the union agreed to an academic boycott motion of Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities before the motion was eventually overturned.
The AUT does not have a boycott motion on the agenda, however a commission, set up by the Special Council of the union in the aftermath of the overruling of the boycott motion, will propose that a boycott be used as a last resort and only implemented when requested by a trade union at a university concerned.
At the NATFHE conference last year, the union proposed a motion supporting the right of the AUT to boycott Israeli universities, which was passed virtually unanimously although parts of the motion had to be rewritten after legal advice.
After the conference NATFHE is set to merge with the AUT, a move which makes it more likely that a stronger boycott motion will return next year.
Boycott motions are likely to be raised at a number of conferences over the next few months. Some of the unions work closely with Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC), a pro-Palestinian non-governmental organisation accused of an anti-Israel agenda.
Communal concern
Expressing his concern at the planned NATHFE debate, Roger Lyons, chair of Trade Union Friends of Israel said: “We are faced with a constant challenge in today’s trade union movement to ensure that understandable support for Palestinian self-determination is not translated into bias and boycotts against Israel.
“It is important that British trade unionists demonstrate support for Israeli and Palestinian trade unions and working people to help strengthen their efforts towards peace and social justice in the region.”
Ronnie Fraser, director of the Academic Friends of Israel added: “The unions offer support when there is right-wing anti-Semitism but do not acknowledge the existence of left wing anti-Semitism.”
“Any protest against it is labelled as an attempt to silence critics of Israel. When this happens the unions should defend its members against discrimination, yet all too often they compound the situation by failing to recognise and often actively denying the existence of a problem,” he added.
In Wednesday's Haaretz newspaper, Britain’s ambassador to Israel, Simon McDonald, responded to the NAFTHE motion saying that his government did not believe that academic boycotts were productive and prefered academic cooperation.
“Far more can be obtained through dialogue and academic cooperation,” he told the Israeli daily.
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