Israeli academics and British boycotts

The Guardian:

Israeli academics who refuse to condemn their government's actions in the occupied territories risk a boycott by the UK's leading lecturers' union.

The Association of University Teachers' annual council, which begins on April 20 in Eastbourne, will also debate whether to boycott three of Israel's eight universities - Haifa University, Bar Ilan University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem - over their alleged complicity with the government's policies on the Palestinian territories.

The union voted against an academic boycott policy two years ago, but campaigners believe the motions are more likely to be passed this year.

The new boycott motion contains a clause to exclude "conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state's colonial and racist policies".

Palestinian academics have also issued a call for an international boycott of Israel.

Sue Blackwell, a lecturer at Birmingham University and one of the authors of the motion, said: "We are now better organised. One of the reasons we didn't win last time was that there was no clear public call from Palestinians for the boycott. Now we have that, in writing."

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel called for a boycott last year. It was signed by 60 academic trade unions, non-governmental organisations and associations in the West Bank and Gaza. A separate poll of staff at al-Quds University, seen by Education Guardian, reveals that 75% support the boycott.

In fact, there is quite a lot of hostility towards Israel amongst British academics:

Today, Education Guardian also reveals new evidence that British academics are turning down offers to work with big research organisations in Israel, citing their objection to the Israeli government's policies.

In the past year, the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF), Israel's biggest science research funding body, has received a dozen refusals from British academics to review grant applications.

One, received last month from an unnamed British academic, said: "I support the academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions, as a means of registering my protest against Israelis' lack of respect for human rights and continuing illegal occupation of Palestinian land."

Tamar Jaffe-Mittwoch, the director of the ISF, said the refusals had come as a shock. "The shock is that the academic world is being contaminated with politics. We feel academia is something that should be pure."

Actually, academia has been contaminated by politics for decades.

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