U.K. Academic Union Votes to Boycott Israeli Academics

by ryan | May 31, 2007 at 09:06 am

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In a continued assault against Israeli academics by British academics, another educational union has voted to boycott Israeli academics and halt any joint projects between British and Israeli intellectuals.

Britain's University and College Union (UCU) voted yesterday to promote a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, protesting Israel's policy on the Palestinians. Jewish and Israeli officials in the U.K. and Israel reacted with outrage to the motion which, for the most part, is a rhetorical move.

The motion was approved by a 158 to 99 vote, and called for freezing European funding for Israeli academic institutions, while condemning "Israeli academia's cooperation with the occupation."

In addition, the UCU decided to bring the question of whether to boycott Israel up for discussion by all the union's members, numbering about 120,000. The discussions are scheduled to take place over the next 12 months. The motion encouraged union members to "consider the moral implications of conducting ties with Israeli academic institutions.

The union will also act toward halting academic
cooperation with Israel, which is currently conducted through the
European Union. The motion called for freezing all EU funding for
Israeli academic institutions until Israel will "comply with the United
Nation's resolutions."

This isn't the first time talk of a boycott has come up, however this time the voting margin suggests it will be the most succesful attempt to block Israeli academics.

In 2005, Fraser acted to overturn another boycott
against Israel, which had been approved by the Association of
University Teachers (AUT.) That decision was overturned a month after
it was passed. In 2006, the National Association of Teachers in Further
and Higher Education (NATFHE) also moved to boycott Israel, but its
decision became invalid shortly thereafter when NATFHE and AUT merged
to form the UCU."