Boycott Israel?

If a North Korean mathematician wants to come to a conference in Britain, we will be happy to discuss maths with her; we will not demand that she repudiates her state’s constitutional claim that North Korea is a socialist paradise on earth. This is how it should be. Discuss integral calculus during the day; discuss politics over dinner; help her to defect, if she wants. But if an Israeli wants to come to the same conference, she would now have to sign a statement saying that she repudiates Israel’s “apartheid policies”. If she refuses, she won’t be allowed to attend the conference, to have her...

By a NATFHE member On 27-29 May, the lecturers’ union NATFHE will meet in Blackpool for its last conference before merger with another lecturers’ union, AUT, to form the “Universities and College Union”, UCU. NATFHE organises lecturers in further education colleges and the “newer” universities, AUT those in the “older” universities, so the merger has industrial logic. All policy at this last NATFHE conference which conflicts with AUT policy will automatically lapse with the merger, so there would seem little point in pushing anything controversial. The South-East Region of NATFHE, however...

A new attempt is being made to set up a movement in Britain to support the Palestinian Arabs by organising a boycott of Israeli goods on sale here. It would be a campaign like the decades-long boycott of South African goods. According to press reports, it already has pledges of support from as many as twenty MPs, mainly Labour, and including Clare Short. Socialist Organiser [forerunner of Solidarity] supports the Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and we support those within Israel fighting to get the Israeli army out of the occupied territories and for...

by sacha ismail A number of recent events have posed again the issue of economic and other boycotts of Israel. The Church and Caterpillar: On 6 February, the Church of England’s general synod voted to disinvest funds from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, including Caterpillar, a US firm which produces earth-moving equipment and has supplied vehicles used by the Israeli army to demolish Palestinian homes. Its D9 armoured bulldozer has been used to destroy over 12,000 houses, with International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie killed in one such...

From Outrage! The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has endorsed a boycott of World Pride, which is due to be held in Jerusalem in 2006 (see the statement by Diane Langford of the PSC on the website www.boycottworldpride.org). OutRage! opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the abuse of Palestinian human rights. We would endorse World Pride including the slogan “No Pride in the Israeli Occupation” But OutRage! cannot support a boycott of World Pride. Progressives do not boycott liberation struggles. We support them. World Pride is an expression of the global struggle for queer...

By Andy Hilton Boycotters are back It looks as if the “boycott Israel" crowd have recovered sufficiently from their defeat in the Association of University Teachers (AUT) to come back for another stab. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine are bringing Dr Nabeel Kassis, president of Birzeit University in the West Bank, to speak in Britain on the case for a boycott of Israeli universities. The tour comprises three meetings, at Sussex, LSE and Birmingham, between the 23 and 25 of October. None of these meetings is sponsored by a branch of...

Kate Ferguson Despite Sue Blackwell’s media notoriety, Hilary Rose is probably the most prominent spokesperson of the movement for an academic boycott of Israel. Her visit to a meeting organised by the Oxford branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in May therefore provided left activists in the city with a valuable opportunity to debate the issues surrounding the boycott intelligently. Unfortunately, it was a missed opportunity. Rose spoke after a passionate twenty-minute speech by a representativefrom the >Friends of Birzeit University , an organisation which campaigns against the...

By Mark Osborn On 26 May, a special conference of the Association of University Teachers voted by a four-to-one majority to overturn the “targeted” academic boycott of Israeli universities which the regular conference of the union had narrowly agreed on a snap vote, without debate, in April. However, the stance taken by the conference of the other lecturers’ union NATFHE the following weekend suggests that the issue — and the need for a campaign on it — is not going to go away. Following the original AUT vote to boycott the universities of Haifa and Bar-Ilan, but before this decision was...

An open letter to Sue Blackwell, leader of the AUT pro-boycotters “There has been a massive and well funded campaign against us and incredible pressure put upon members in the run up to this debate.” Sue Blackwell on the defeat of the academic boycott of Israel, in the Guardian, 27 May. Dear Sue, I’ve known you for two years. I know you as a sane, committed, long-time socialist. A socialist who long ago saw through and broke away from the demagogy and mindlessness of the SWP — with the exception of one momentous political question, the Israeli-Arab conflict. There, unfortunately, as they say...