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Palestine, the right to education & the academic boycott of Israeli institutions

Oxford PSC have organized a public speaker meeting to discuss the academic boycott of Israeli institutions.

Generic media poster for meeting - application/pdf 42K

Public speaker meeting – “Palestine, the right to education and the academic boycott of Israeli institutions”. Our two excellet speakers are Hilary Rose, Professor of Social Policy, Bradford University, and Dan Richards, Friends of Bir Zeit University.

On: Tuesday 7th June,7:30pm, Council Chamber, Oxford Town Hall, St Aldates, Oxford.

All welcome.

OxfordPSC
Homepage: http://www.oxfordpsc.info

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

AUT and the israel boycott

28.05.2005 17:14

reports say the AUT council is due to reconvene to vote again on its boycott of 2 israeli universities because, according to one OU tutor, 80% of members actually oppose the boycott. why would that be true? i suggest all AUT members are sent on sabbatical to ramallah or jayyous for a year as olive farmers. even israelis are boycotting the settlements:

http://www.gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boyceng.htm

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why would that be true?

28.05.2005 20:55

Maybe if you took the ideological blinders off your eyes it would make more sense. The first thing you will need to notice is that there are more than two sides in the conflict. In other words, in addiiton to the overall conflict Israeli vs Palestinian you have Israeli vs Israeli and Palestinian vs Palestinian.

Funny, you seem to be able to notice that the Gush Shalom people oppose the occupation but apparently haven't a clue what sort of people are most likely to be associated with Gush Shalom. >

Funny you don't seem to be able to notice statements coming from the Palestinian academic community opposing the academic boycott. Does that surprise you? You don't understand? The Palestinian academic may have closer communications with their Isralei counterparts than with the anti-academic components of Palestinian society and cutting off connection of the Israeli academic community to the outsde cuts them off too.

Now none of these things necessarily mean that an academic boycott if Israel is a bad idea but they are enough to mean that it's a subject which needs serious discussion of the merits pro and con -- not a knee jerk sanp decision based upon how you would like conflicts in the world to be "simple" instead of being the complicated messes they usually are.

Mike
mail e-mail: stepbystpefarm mtdata.com

AUT vote

28.05.2005 21:38

in fact the AUT voted to 'revoke all existing boycotts of Israeli institutions' on thursday:

http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1235

british trade unionism. it's busted.

the usual argument you hear from zionists is that, well, occupation is a very complicated issue and we should all talk some more. lots more. round and round on the merrygoround as israeli occupation / expansion gets more entrenched on the ground. the issue is very simple: nasty nationalist colonisers (israelis) murder and thieve their way around some sandy patch in the middle east so they can live out a racist religious dream. they shout a lot so no one can get a word in when people complain because shouting a lot and saying things are complicated buys time for the expulsion of palestinians which is proving regrettably slow. lobbying british unions and accusing people of anti semitism is part of this process. meanwhile, settlements in the west bank expand, the wall cuts into more and more land on the wrong side of the 67 border and so on. nation building is a longterm project, right mike?

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Good morning!

28.05.2005 21:58

You've woken up a bit late. The AUT boycott against Israeli universities wsa rescinded yesterday (Friday). 'Bout time too.

Israbrit

Boycott should be TOTAL, not just universities

28.05.2005 23:09

Considering Israel has WMD, a war criminal leader, invades her neighbours and steals their land, is in breach of numerous UN resolutions, executes without charge or trial and engages in mass reprisals and collective punishment, it should consider itself lucky the world isn't calling for it to be "shocked and awed" into submission like Iraq.

Israel should be a pariah state until it obeys the international community - and that doesn't just mean the Likudnik Fifth Column in Washington and Downing Street who keep funding their crimes.

Boycott Israeli Goods

Liar, pants on fire

29.05.2005 11:17

You who are so keen to boycott all Israeli goods, should count yourself lucky you're not taken to court for slander and libel. And if you're going to boycott Israeli goods, well, I hope you're not using your computer or mobile phone any more because these were invented in Israel. I hope you don't make use of any of Israel's new medical inventions, so you can suffer needlessly. The list goes on - you know where to find all Israel's inventions.

"executes without charge or trial and engages in mass reprisals and collective punishment": Israel does NOT execute anyone without charge or trial. If you're going to bring up the killing of Rantisi and Yassin, well, they executed thousands of Israeli civilians without charge either. It was a pure defensive action.

"Considering Israel has WMD": Israel has never admitted having WMD - go prove it. Vanunu says yes, we say no. "is in breach of numerous UN resolutions:" Not one UN resolution about Israel has been a binding Security Council resolution. "a war criminal leader": Ariel Sharon is NOT a war criminal, and you saying so does not make him one. Israel has never invaded her neighbours unless they were invading her first. Self defence does not count as stealing anyone's land.

You're just a liar, and dare I say it? Yes, you're an anti Semite too.

Brit

Agreed

29.05.2005 11:28

In that case we should boycott British,US,chinese, and more or less every coutry's goods which i wouldnt be opposed to. Britain has had its fair share of war crimes and one of them is taking place right now in Iraq. Same with teh U.S of course and most countries in the 'civilised' world. So I say boycott Israeli god, but lets see if you have the bottle to condemn Britain for being just as bad as Israel and boycott British goods aswell.Ive gotta say ive never heard any1 call for that. Punish teh criminals...Alll of them with no exeption.

Boycott capitalism

"Liar, pants on fire"

29.05.2005 12:13

So you first say Israel doesn't "execute anyone without charge or trial" and then you say it does.........

You're a total lying twat mate.

ftp

What about the Six Day War in 1967

29.05.2005 19:57

Brit,

You said "Israel has never invaded her neighbours unless they were invading her first. Self defence does not count as stealing anyone's land."

Did Eygpt invade Israel in 1967? NO

Did Syria invade Israel in 1967? NO

Did Palestine invade Israel in 1976? NO

Did Israel invade Eygpt, Syria, The Gaza Strip and The West Bank in 1967? YES

Is Israel STILL Violating UN Resolution 242? YES, as Israel is STILL occupying The Gaza Strip and The West Bank!

Get your facts right Brit!

SHEESH!

Anti Zionist, Brighton

ho ho ho!!!

30.05.2005 09:13

... invented the computer and the mobile phone???

Yeah yaeh, do a bit of work on some of the electronics (not even original work at that) and all ofa sudden 'you invented the lot' - typical self obsession and hubris for a zionist!

Not suprised that big institutions figure that they better not go to far (after all what with the pension schemes invested and all that) - at the end of the day it is up to the consumer to carry out the lions share of the boycott.

One of the best ways is to actually buy the stuff and then take it back for your refund - you can state your [political] reasons or not. Either way its even more akward for them.

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com

any sites listing Israeli products we can boycott?

30.05.2005 14:12

I believe Zionism is racism, and that a boycott of Israeli goods is as necessary as it was for Apartheid South Africa. Are there any decent sites listing products we can target for a consumer boycott?

Regard,
KRS2

KRS2

just remember 729 ...

31.05.2005 08:36

... it's on the bar code ...

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@homail.com

Boycott Israeli goods site

31.05.2005 21:35

Yes, there is a site that lists goods to boycott, see

http://www.bigcampaign.org/ and

http://www.bigcampaign.org/boycott.html in particular.

Oxford PSC
Homepage: http://www.bigcampaign.org/

UK Indymedia