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| UK academics vote to boycott Israel
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David Triesman, secretary of state for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
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LONDON (EJP)--- The largest university and college trade union in the UK, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), passed a motion on Monday in favour of a boycott of Israeli lecturers and academic institutions.
At their annual conference, held in the northern town of Blackpool, Motion 198C, essentially a call for a silent boycott of Israeli academia, was narrowly passed with 106 votes in favour, 71 against and 21 abstentions.
The motion calls for academic responsibility noting “the continuing Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices”.
It invites 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”.
A petition from more than 5,000 academics and an appeal from the Israeli government failed to have any bearing on the motion.
Counterproductive and retrograde
The British government has expressed regret at the decision to boycott Israeli institutions.
David Triesman, secretary of state for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, said in a statement: “We regret the decision to vote in favour of boycotting Israeli academics and institutions. The British Government has a record of supporting academic freedom for academics throughout the world. We also recognise the independence of NATFHE and believe that such academic boycotts are counterproductive and retrograde. Far more can be obtained through dialogue and academic cooperation.”
The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom (IAB) at Bar Ilan University, said in a statement that it views the NATFHE resolution as an offence to the universal principle of academic freedom and as counterproductive to the cause of peace and understanding in the Middle East.
Dr Jonathan Rynhold, a member of the IAB executive committee, said: “Instead of judging academics on merit, academics will be judged according to their nationality and political opinions.”
Professor Gerald Steinberg, director of the Interdisciplinary Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation and a member of the IAB executive committee, added: “Such political actions both fuel the conflict and destroy the academic process, since we will no longer be able to trust the objectivity and professional detachment of academics who are involved in ‘silent boycotts’, the journals they edit, and the peer review processes in which they participate.”
Ronnie Fraser, director of the Academic Friends of Israel, called the motion “racist”, he said: “There are countless Palestinian and Arab collaborations with Israel in agriculture, medicine, science and many other fields; as well as burgeoning links between academics in this country and Israel. If the sponsors of this boycotting campaign succeeded in something, it is only to undermine further progress, collaboration and peace in the Middle East and to marginalize the standing of NATFHE, it successor union, the UCU and British academia.”
Doubts over imposition
NATFHE spokesman Trevor Phillips said the motion would not necessarily be adopted, it will only act as advisory policy. Next Wednesday the union will merge with the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the policy will not automatically be binding on the new University and College Union (UCU).
The UCU must state clearly on Wednesday whether this policy has any standing in the new union.
The motion also noted the “humanitarian disaster threatened by the withholding of EU, US and other funds from the Palestinian Authority following the election of a Hamas government and urges the UCU to develop as quickly as possible a coherent policy of concrete assistance to Palestine universities and civil society”.
Last year members of the AUT voted to impose a boycott but the council of the union overwhelmingly rejected the boycott.
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