Backlash Against British

British union of campus lecturers condemned for censure of Haifa and Bar-Ran universities.

pass the AUT last year — was
Birmingham University lecturer Sue
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Blackwell, a long-time pro-Palestinian
campaigner.
London
Blackwell said she received many mes-
he backlash against the decision
sages of support for the campaign
by a union of British university
against "apartheid" Israel, adding that
lecturers to sever ties with two
the motion was a reply to a 2003 boy-
Israeli universities began almost as soon
cott request supported by 60 Palestinian
as the controversial motion was passed
trade
unions and nongovernmental
last month.
organizations.
A wave of condemnation met the
But the motion has proved to be
decision by the 48,000-member
embarrassing not only for Blackwell's
Association of University Teachers to
own university — which immediately
sever links with Haifa and Bar-Ilan uni-
distanced itself from the boy-
versities following a resolution
cott — but for her union.
narrowly passed at the AUT's
It rapidly became clear that
annual conference.
implementing
the boycott
Within days, a half-dozen
could put universities in direct
AUT members had resigned
contravention of their equal
in protest, with more expect-
opportunity policies.
ed to follow suit.
AUT General Secretary
Britain's Jewish community
Sally Hunt issued directions
was outraged at the move to
to members to take no action
censure Haifa because of
until further notice.
Rabbi
Sacks
alleged discrimination against
"The national executive will
a radical left-wing professor
issue guidance to local associations on
and against Bar-Ilan because of the sup-
the implementation of the boycotts of
port it provides to a college in the West
the two Israeli universities in due
Bank.
course," she said. "Until this guidance is
They quickly mobilized, with the
issued, it is stressed that _members should
Board of Deputies of British Jewry,
be advised to not take any action in rela-
announcing the formation of a
tion to a boycott which would place
Campaign Group for Academic
them in breach of their contract of
Freedom to coordinate activity across a
employment."
range of community groups in hopes of
The British campaign to boycott
overturning the decision.
Israeli academic institutions is an issue
Britain's Orthodox chief rabbi,
that has refused to go away. It was initi-
Jonathan Sacks, said he was "most dis-
ated by an April 2002 letter in the
tressed" by the motion, which he called
Guardian newspaper written by a hus-
"a sad day for British universities.
band-and-wife pair of British Jewish aca-
"The AUT has betrayed the academic
demics, Steven and Hilary Rose.
principles it supposedly represents," he
Signed by 123 scholars, the letter pro-
said.
Opposition also came from outside the posed that since "many national and
European cultural and research institu-
Jewish community, with British newspa-
tions regard Israel as a European state
pers united in their condemnation.
for the purposes of awarding grants and
described
the
The Times of London
step as "a mockery of academic freedom, contracts," it was time to declare a
moratorium on any further support
a biased and blinkered move that is as
"unless and until Israel abides by U.N.
ill-timed as it is perverse," warning that
resolutions and opens serious peace
it could provide an excuse for increased
negotiations with the Palestinians."
anti-Semitism.
Coming amid Operation Defensive
A spokesman for Universities U.K., a
Shield,
Israel's West Bank incursion fol-
higher education action group, said that
lowing
months of increasing terrorist
it "condemns the resolution from AUT
attacks by Palestinians against Israeli
which is inimical to academic freedom,
civilians, the proposed boycott sparked a
including the freedom of academics to
fierce international debate and prompt-
collaborate with other academics."
One of the initiators of the motion — ed an on-line counter-petition that
quickly gathered support.
a weaker version of one that failed to

DANIELLA PELED

T

Further controversy followed that
summer when Mona Baker, a linguistics
professor at the University of
Manchester Institute of Science and
Technology, removed two Israeli schol-
ars, Gideon Toury and Miriam
Shlesinger, from her journal of transla-
tion studies.
Then, in autumn 2003, Oxford
University took disciplinary action
against pathology professor Andrew
Wilkie after he refused to accept a Ph.D.
application from a Tel Aviv university
student. Citing Israel's "gross human
rights abuses" against Palestinians,
Wilkie told Amit Duvshani, "I am sure
you are perfectly nice at a personal level
but no way would I take on somebody
who had served in the Israeli army."
The issue reappeared last December at
an international conference at the
School of African and Oriental Studies
at London University on strategies to
resist Israeli "apartheid."
Ronnie Fraser, a math lecturer at
London's Barnet College and chair of
the Academic Friends of Israel, said pro-
Israel views have become increasingly
unfashionable among the British intelli-
gentsia.
The boycott movement also may have
been boosted by the complacency of
pro-Israel groups, which felt gratified by
widespread opposition to the concept of
academic sanctions.
"They thought the boycott had gone
away," Fraser says, pointing to the 1,000
signatories to the original boycott letter,
compared with around 15,000 signa-
tures on the one rebutting it.
Fraser also believes the fact that the
AUT motion was heard on Passover eve
made it difficult for Jewish members to
attend.
Other circumstances surrounding the
vote have been the subject of scrutiny.
Requests for outside speakers to make
the case against the boycott were reject-
ed, and there was no time made avail-
able for debate.
"The resolutions are as perverse in
their content as in the way they were
debated and adopted," said a spokesman
for the Israeli embassy in London. "The
AUT ignored overwhelming academic
and public rejection of the proposed
motions.
"The fact that no AUT member who
wanted to argue against this decision
was allowed to speak, and the case for

the Israeli universities was not presented
to delegates, speaks volumes about the
relevance and fairness of this debate."
Moves already are under way to col-
lect the signatures of 25 AUT members
to put forward a motion demanding
that the boycott decision be overturned.
But Fraser cautioned against prema-
ture celebration. Israel and its advocates
now need to organize, he said, because
the subject is not going to disappear.
"The issue is not the AUT vote," he
says. "The issue is the delegitimization
of Israel."

❑

Bar-Dan Protests

Bar-Ilan University views with the
utmost severity the decision of the
British-based Association of University
Teachers (AUT)
to boycott the
university. On
behalf of the uni-
versity leadership,
I consider this
decision "academ-
ic terror," lacking
all reason and
logic other than
Professor Kaveh
its condemnation
of the State of Israel for its own political
purposes.
At the same time, I express satisfac-
tion that the government of England
has stated its opposition to both the
decision and to the AUT
[The AUT] resolution will have no
impact on the university. Bar-Ilan is
proud of its five associated extension
campuses throughout the country;
Israel's seven universities have never
mixed academics and politics. I deem
this decision as an embarrassment to the
organization that made it and demand
that it be withdrawn.
The university commends the many
members of the AUT that have stated
that they strongly condemn this deci-
sion and those among them who have
announced that they will resign from
the organization unless the decision is
reversed.
Bar-Ilan commends Israel's Ministries
of Foreign Affairs and Education for
their efforts to achieve this goal.

Professor Moshe Kaveh
president, Bar Ilan Universi ty
Ramat Gan, Israel

JN

5/12

2005

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