Another UCU Boycott of Israeli Academics!

We thought that the UK union boycotts of Israel were behind us, after legal opinions ruled they were illegal, but the UCU thinks it found a way around the law.

 

Ami Isseroff

 

The UCU's Boycott of Israel and How to Fight It

Published

by

Ben

on May 28, 2008

in Z word blog

.

When we launched Z Word at the end of January 2008, the first crop of essays included a brilliant dissection of the boycott by Eve Garrard, entitled "Excluding Israelis."

Eve ended her piece like this: "It would be nice to be able to say that what I've provided here is the anatomy of a failure, but it's by no means certain that we've heard the last of the boycott project. Watch this space." And I remember, during our back and forth over the editing of her essay, asking Eve whether she was not being a little overcautious with this last sentence. Surely, I said, referring back to the UCU's own legal advice that a boycott would violate anti-discrimination laws, this is over. Surely, I continued, what you are writing about is history, not a current threat.

Eve demurred. Don't rule anything out, she told me. Unfortunately, she turned out to be right. Today, 28 May 2008, the UCU did it all over again. At their annual conference in Manchester, they voted to encourage an academic boycott of Israelis.

Except that Sally Hunt, the UCU's General Secretary, is busily claiming that what was passed is not, in fact, a boycott of Israelis, but a call for solidarity with the Palestinians. Now, it may be that Hunt is worried about the fact that the union's policy, as of this afternoon, urges members to break the law, and that her words are a clumsy approximation of spin. Or - remembering Eve Garrard's dictum not to rule anything out, and we are talking about the UCU after all - it may be that we have passed through the looking glass. The boycott is not a boycott. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

This is a motion which puts the entire blame for the conflict on Israel. A motion that notes the "complicity" of "most" of the "Israeli academy." A motion which calls on UCU members to "consider the moral and political implications" of working with Israeli colleagues. Which encourages members to raise the issue of the "occupation" with Israelis they happen to be collaborating with ("Amos and Tikvah, can we just put that discussion about those antiretroviral drugs to one side, as we'd like to ask you about your complicity with the occupation"). A motion which deems that criticism of Israel is not "as such, antisemitic" (very inconsiderate towards Hezbollah and Hamas, who have gone out of their way to demonstrate that the manner in which they criticize Israel emphatically is antisemitic). Finally, a motion which urges a wider discussion about breaking links with Israeli institutions on the basis of discussions with British and Palestinian - but not Israeli - trade unionists.

And yet, Sally Hunt tells us that what we have here is not a boycott.

Many people in Britain will tell you that the UCU is a sorry excuse for a union, unable to do anything to improve the working conditions of its members and cowed by the antics of the Socialist Worker's Party. Some conclude that, therefore, the UCU isn't worth bothering about.

That view is understandable, but mistaken. The boycotters aim is to turn Israel into a 21st Century version of apartheid South Africa. The sordid motion they passed today will no doubt be presented by them as the first step in doing so.

As we gear up to fight the UCU boycott - and the broader campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) - here are some useful links:

• As well as Eve Garrard's original Z Word essay, there is her incisive portrait of the boycotter as a stalker;

• The legal advice obtained by Stop the Boycott, which demonstrates conclusively why the boycott is illegal;

• A critically important piece by Shalom Lappin; it might have been written last year, but it has lost none of its relevance;

• David Hirsh's recent piece for Democratiya examining arguments against the boycott;

• My own monograph on the ideological foundations of the boycott campaign;

And don't forget to regularly check the blog of our friends at Engage.