If you’ve been following this site for any length of time, you know that there are a considerable number of calls and movements to boycott Israel, from various countries and sources. One of the things that all of these boycott movements have in common is that if you dig down deeply enough, you will always find a Palestinian group at their core. Sabeel is one of the biggest leaders in the anti-Israel boycott movement. But there has been a concerted move by the Arab and Muslim world, in concert with those who hate Israel, to delegitimize Israel on many fronts.
The news last week that Britain’s largest academic union decided not to boycott Israel on legal grounds (gee, and isn’t that a moral high road? “Let’s not do it, we might get sued.”) was great news. But this is even better:
A tour of Palestinian academic officials arranged by the British University and College Union was canceled following the union’s decision to call off its threat of an academic boycott of Israel.
During the tour, Palestinian academics were meant to visit British campuses and present their side of the conflict and the advantages of imposing an academic boycott on Israel.
Darn. There goes the propaganda mission, down the toilet! And the Palestinians are seething.
Following the cancellation, the British Committee for Universities of Palestine issued a statement condemning the move. The committee claimed the UCU’s decision was based on legal advice that had not been shared with all the union’s members.
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, one of the committee’s heads, who has also signed a petition organized by Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said it was not rare for government or other bodies to turn to lawyers to receive the legal advice they want to hear.
See, here’s the thing about deciding a legal question. Once a lawyer determines something is going to open an organization up to liability, he and other lawyers get together to make sure that he’s right. Once they determine that could happen, that’s pretty much the end of it in the corporate world. The membership of the union doesn’t get to vote on whether or not the union should take a risk of being sued. If Professor Jonathan Rosenhead had done what his mother wanted him to do, he’d be a lawyer now, instead of an academic, and he’d be able to grasp that simple concept. He might even not have turned against Israel, but hey, he’s a British Jew, so he’s already halfway there.
Dr Amjad Barham, president of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, sent an open letter to Hunt expressing the federation’s shock and surprise at the cancellation of the tour.
In his letter, Barham wrote hat federation members felt their British colleagues were prevented the right to receive direct information, and expressed disappointment with the union’s leadership for failing to protect the members’ rights to hold an open discussion on the matter of the boycott.
So, here’s the gist of the letter, if I have this right: Even though the legal staff has determined that if the UCU holds the boycott, it will be sued, which could effectively end the UCU, and even though the reason they could be sued is because the boycott against Israel would violate discrimination laws in the U.K., the Palestinians should still be allowed to go on a tour of British university campuses to tell people why they should have a discriminatory, probably-illegal boycott of Israel.
Yep. Makes sense to me. Go on tour, boys, and remember to pack the good CDs for the trip to LaLa Land. “Prevented the right to receive direct information” my ass. All they have to do is head for the BBC website and they’ll have plenty of the same information that the tour was going to give them.
File this one under: Sore Losers.
israel academic boycott
Rosenhead? Where the bleep do all these Copperhead Jews come from, who help to enable the next Holocaust? Effing traitors.
“One of the things that all of these boycott movements have in common is that if you dig down deeply enough, you will always find a Palestinian group at their core.” – You don’t really have to dig that deep, Meryl – Palestinians are the main driver of the BDS movement; indeed this is what gives legitimacy to the call. And I really think you need to do a bit more research on the details of the UCU motion and the nature of the legal advice. The motion called for a debate; the advice explicity did not rule this out – unfortunately, it has been used in this way for political purposes.