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UCU Abandons Israel Boycott Campaign

gehrig | 28.09.2007 16:03 | Education

UCU has emailed members with a notice declaring that UCU had consulted their lawyers and discovered that proposed academic boycott of Israel was illegal. Thus, as the notice alerted, "UCU’s Strategy and Finance Committee was unanimous in today agreeing a recommendation from general secretary Sally Hunt that any academic boycott would be illegal to undertake and cannot be implemented."

The UCU has just officially repudiated the illegally discriminatory call for a boycott of Israeli academics. They have done so for one simple reason: their lawyers agreed that it would be illegally discriminatory.

This is exactly what opponents of the campaign have been claiming from the beginning: such a boycott would be illegal, divisive within the union, wasteful of union resources better put to productive use elsewhere, and certain to come to nought. They were right on all counts.

gehrig

Additions

Open Letter to Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU

01.10.2007 10:38

Dear Ms. Hunt,

We have received with dismay, although not entirely with surprise, your letter of September 28, 2007 to members of the delegation of Palestinian academic trade union members informing them of the decision by the University and College Union's leadership to cancel their speaking tour to the UK to discuss the academic boycott of Israel with their colleagues at universities there. We wish to state clearly that we believe that our British colleagues have been deprived of an opportunity to better inform themselves about an issue which is of concern to conscientious academics and intellectuals the world over. Moreover, we are disappointed to see that the leadership of a prominent organization of academics such as yours has not defended the right of its members to engage in debate on this matter. Open debate and discussion are the foundations of academic freedom, and thus we cannot understand why the door to open consideration of controversial ideas has been so abruptly closed.

We shall continue to pursue other avenues to make our case heard in the academic community in the UK, and shall not be deterred by the cancellation of the invitation extended to us by the UCU. While we do not have the resources of the Israel lobby in the UK, we do think that fair-minded British academics will be willing to listen to our case and give it thoughtful consideration. Truth is stronger than power, and we trust in the integrity of British academics to know that instinctively.

We do not think that your members are unaware of the significant role played by the UCU's predecessor, the AUT, in upholding academics' commitment to justice. During the struggle against the odious apartheid regime in South Africa, British academics were at the forefront of the academic and other boycotts of the racist state. We do not see why considering ways of fighting Israeli oppression of Palestinians should be subject to different considerations.

We appreciate the sentiments expressed in your letter about "finding a way of opening a dialogue with the Palestinian academic community on building solidarity." The best form of solidarity with Palestinians, whether they are academics or ordinary people, is direct action aimed at bringing an end to the occupation and the regime of apartheid in Palestine. Isolating Israel in the international arena through various forms of boycott and sanctions and forcing it to obey international law and respect Palestinian rights is one of the strategies open to international civil society, including members of the academy. We are confident that our British colleagues will begin to realize that true solidarity with Palestinian academics requires a political commitment to bringing about an end to oppression and injustice.

Sincerely,
Dr. Amjad Barham
The President of Federation of Union of Palestinian Universities' Professors & Employees.

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Homepage: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0071267.html

BRICUP Condemns UCU Ban on Discussion of Israeli Academic Boycott

01.10.2007 10:51

BRICUP (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine) today condemned the decision of the University and College Union (UCU) to cancel the tour of UK campuses by Palestinian academics. UCU was specifically instructed to organise this tour by the UCU Congress last May. The tour was intended to raise debate within the union about an academic boycott of Israeli universities. The UCU leadership under General Secretary Sally Hunt is hiding behind ‘legal advice’ which they have not disclosed to their members in order to sabotage a decision with which they disagree.

In May 2007 in Bournemouth, UCU Annual Congress voted by 158 to 99 in favour of a resolution which instructed the National Executive Committee to

circulate the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches/LAs for information and discussion;
encourage members to consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions;
organise a UK-wide campus tour for Palestinian academic/educational trade unionists;
issue guidance to members on appropriate forms of action.
actively encourage and support branches to create direct links with Palestinian educational institutions and to help set up nationally sponsored programmes for teacher exchanges, sabbatical placements, and research

The UCU senior office holders led by General Secretary Sally Hunt argued fiercely against this motion. The motion’s effect was to initiate a year-long debate about boycotting Israeli universities. Having lost the argument they are now finding other means to subvert the democratic vote of the union’s highest decision-making body.

This use of the law to interfere with democratic freedoms is a deeply worrying tendency – witness the 2005 Serious and Organized Crimes Act preventing protests around Parliament and Downing Street, and the decision last week to ban the march in Central London planned by the Stop the War Coalition.

BRICUP has the deepest doubts about the validity of the ‘legal advice’ which UCU is claiming as the reason for its cancellation of the tour by Palestinians, and the effective banning of discussion of the boycott topic in union branches. BRICUP demands answers to the following questions:

who provided the legal advice?
what was the verbatim advice received? It needs to be published so that it can be open to critical scrutiny
was any previous advice sought from other sources, and if so what was its content?

According to BRICUP co-chair Professor Jonathan Rosenhead “It is all too common for governments and other bodies to go to a lawyer who will give them the advice they want to hear. This is how the then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith got the advice that the invasion of Iraq was ‘legal’”.

www.bricup.org.uk

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Comments

Hide the following 24 comments

"UCU members' opinions cannot be tested at local meetings"

28.09.2007 16:11

Thats the legal advice that the Unions Management has come up with -

http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2829 = profoundly democratic what?

Whilst I'm sure that gehrig is having wet dreams of ecstasy that Israel cannot be acted against according to some anonymous lawyers, hopefully the majority of imcers will see how profoundly unjust this is.

Guess what - boycotting Palestinians is no less discriminatory........ but hey, they don't have the same protection for some reason.

A reason that indymedia's resident zionist will be able to explain, I'm sure.....

ftp

you've got it backwards

28.09.2007 18:02

It's UCU Left, the boycott supporters, that did everything they could to stop a ballot. That's why rank and file were in the process of organizing to force one.

http://www.ucu-ballot.org/

And that's why many opponents of the boycott are wishing it *had* come to a vote -- just read the comments at

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1433 -- since it was clear that it would have gone down to a resounding defeat. Even the SWP (Simpletons Waving Placards) said it would go down to overwhelming defeat if it came to a vote.

Of course, now that it turns out that the boycott would have been illegal anyway, such a vote is irrelevant.

Unless, of course, you want to complain -- and you apparently do -- that the UCU rank and file should now be given a chance to vote on a boycott the union itself has already declared illegal. I can see how some people would go for that.

gehrig

now, now, tell the truth

28.09.2007 18:27

It was opponents of the boycott who wanted a ballot of the rank and file -- check it out, www.ucu-ballot.org -- because those local meetings which had polls over the last month went 90% against the boycott.

And it was the pro-(illegal)-boycott "UCU Left" coalition on the executive council that used its machinations to stop such a ballot, for exactly that reason.

The boycott was a bad idea for any number of reasons. Even the SWP backed away from it only days ago. Its being illegal is just one more reason on the stack.

gehrig

zionism can breathe a sigh of relief - for now

28.09.2007 20:54

I have no faith in gehrig's ability to judge anything, and no desire to engage with him.

I look forward to that legal advice being published, and then challenged......

ftp

Here it is.

28.09.2007 21:37

It's in on the UCU site. Thanks for asking.

http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2829

The legal advice makes it clear that making a call to boycott Israeli institutions would run a serious risk of infringing discrimination legislation. The call to boycott is also considered to be outside the aims and objects of the UCU.

The union has been told that while UCU is at liberty to debate the pros and cons of Israeli policies, it cannot spend members' resources on seeking to test opinion on something which is in itself unlawful and cannot be implemented. . . .

The legal advice states: 'It would be beyond the union's powers and unlawful for the union, directly or indirectly, to call for, or to implement, a boycott by the union and its members of any kind of Israeli universities and other academic institutions; and that the use of union funds directly or indirectly to further such a boycott would also be unlawful.'

The advice also says that 'to ensure that the union acts lawfully, meetings should not be used to ascertain the level of support for such a boycott.'

@%<

gehrig

no it isn't

29.09.2007 09:26

Its clearly UCUs spin on it - "The legal advice makes it clear that making a call to boycott Israeli institutions would run a serious risk of infringing discrimination legislation." - it needs to be rather fuller than that. Who are these lawyers, and what is their argument? Can the same argument be used against politicians who have called for sanctions on the Palestinians, or is this just more one sided western hypocrisy?

Thats what needs to be determined from the original documents that the lawyers provided to the union.....

ftp

'boycotting Palestinians is no less discriminatory'

29.09.2007 14:24

But the UCU isn't boycotting the Palestinians. If they were, the same legal advice would apply.

NotaZionist

actually, no

29.09.2007 14:53

'it needs to be rather fuller than that'

Actually, no, it doesn't, because the point is academic (so to speak) unless the Simpletons Waving Placards on the UCU executive decide to try to boycott somebody else as well -- which they won't, which only reinforces the fact that the proposed boycott was discriminatory.

However, surely you are such a talented investigative reporter that you can secretly contact some secret contacts within the UCU and get the primary documents, right?

@%<

gehrig

Discrimatory?

29.09.2007 17:07

Against whom is it discriminating, oh fellow imcista?

And what other people, besides the Palestinians, who called for the boycott, are suffering from ongoing ethnocide by another race? When did they call for boycott, and why haven't the UCU voted on those calls?

"The Indymedia UK website provides an interactive platform for reports from the struggles for a world based on freedom, cooperation, justice and solidarity, and against environmental degradation, neoliberal exploitation, racism and patriarchy. The reports cover a wide range of issues and social movements - from neighbourhood campaigns to grassroots mobilisations, from critical analysis to direct action"

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/mission.html

ftp

The hypocrisy of the US and EU

29.09.2007 17:14

"But the UCU isn't boycotting the Palestinians. If they were, the same legal advice would apply."

Thankyou for helping me make the point.They aren't - but the EU and US are.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6469217.stm

Thats exactly the hypocrisy that I find so objectionable.

Heres an argument that it isn't discriminatory to boycott Israeli goods, services and academia:

http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/palestine300807.html

But we're supposed to forget all about the Palestinians in this, are we not?

ftp

simple

29.09.2007 17:55

"Against whom is it discriminating, oh fellow imcista?"

Its restrictions would inescapably fall disproportionately on Jewish academics. It's a simple case of indirect discrimination (or, as it's apparently called at UK Indymedia, "discrimation"), and the UCU realized that there was no way around that result. Indirect discrimination is -- and this is good news for anti-racists who are actually anti-racist, rather than just posing -- just as illegal as direct discrimination.

Here's how David Hirsh, one of the leaders of Engage, the anti-racist movement that successfully quashed this racist boycott, put it: "It will be claimed by the campaign to exclude Israelis from our campuses, conferences and journals that the end of the boycott in UCU represents a capitulation to ‘bourgeois’ or ‘Zioinst’ law (the two adjectives have become inter-changeable amongst some ‘anti-Zionist’ ‘anti-capitalists’). In truth, however, anti-discrimination law is not a mode of state repression but a victory, hard-won, by generations of antiracist activists. It is a good thing that there is law in place which prohibits bodies like our union from discriminating against Jews. In the old days there was no legal prohibition on Jewish quotas and silent or explicit exclusions and boycotts of Jews by civil society organizations such as universities, golf-clubs and trades unions. The exclusion of Jews is no longer a private matter of choice for an organization; it is now illegal. This is good. "

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1433

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gehrig

actually, no

29.09.2007 18:03

"But we're supposed to forget all about the Palestinians in this, are we not?"

Actually, no. We're celebrating the defeat of a divisive, ineffective, pointless, and spectacularly futile tactic that distracted from, rather than moved along, the discussion of how to come to peace between Israel and Palestine, forcing it out of the sterile cul-de-sac the "let's just eradicate Israel" "We are all Hezbollah" crowd forced it into.

You should be happy. If your goal is actually peace between Israel and the Palestinians, that is. If your goal is simply to destroy Israel, well, no wonder you're complaining.

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gehrig

No Justice - No peace.

29.09.2007 18:16

"Its restrictions would inescapably fall disproportionately on Jewish academics."

Aah yes, of course, all the colonisers were from a particular racial group - so now we cant think about taking action against their racist, ethnocidal regime. Catch 22. How convenient for supporters of a racist ideology, such as yourself.

I'm interested in justice and then peace.

Is Israel going to be offering justice?

Thats a rhetorical question by the way - because we all know they aren't.

Hence the need for someone to heed the Palestinians call. They're the people that Israel is discriminating against. But you don't care about that, do you gehrig?

ftp

who else is suffering ethnocide?

29.09.2007 18:22

Oh, the people in Darfur, the Karens in Burma, the Tibetans in China - to name but a few.

And how many people do you have to kill before you talk of 'ethnocide'?

NotaZionist

not surprising

29.09.2007 18:57

"I'm interested in justice and then peace."

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one of competing claims, competing injuries, and competing rights. It's up to Israel and Palestine themselves to decide what constitutes a just solution. You and I are just spectators.

And do you know what? Neither Israel nor Palestine are likely to be completely satisfied by the final agreement. And do you know what else? That's how we'll know it's a just settlement.

Incidentally, since you are interested in justice, then surely you will join me in congratulating the UCU for their just solution to the issue of antisemitic boycotts.

@%<

gehrig

Zionism's War to Wipe Palestine Off The Map

29.09.2007 19:27

"The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one of competing claims, competing injuries, and competing rights."

Well, sort of, except that the Zionist claims are LIES, the injuries, the result of the European Zionists' colonial project, and the rights of the Palestinians taken away by these colonizers and their foreign collaborators.

The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
Published by
Jews for Justice in the Middle East
As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational "terrorists" who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent crimes—on both sides—inevitably follow from this original injustice.

This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to the region's problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record.

http://www.wrmea.com/jews_for_justice/

"It's up to Israel and Palestine themselves to decide what constitutes a just solution."

Not really. The Zionists, like yourself, only say this in order to obfuscate what such a solution should look like, because they know they are wrong, and only in perpetuating the theft hoisted upon the Palestinians can the Zionists hold onto their power, wealth, and dream of dominating the region.

"Incidentally, since you are interested in justice, then surely you will join me in congratulating the UCU for their just solution to the issue of antisemitic boycotts."

Nothing 'antisemitic' in condemning a brutal, Apartheid, military state, but at least you allowed your true colors to shine through.

Zionism, Irrelevant Within A Generation

gehrig's race fixation

01.10.2007 10:48

"Incidentally, since you are interested in justice, then surely you will join me in congratulating the UCU for their just solution to the issue of antisemitic boycotts."

Strangely enough, there is NOTHING antisemitic in PACBI's Call for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. It isn't a boycott of Jews, as there are clearly Jews who support the Palestinian call.

You are guilty of conflating zionism and judaism, and it is you that consistently brings race into the issue.

Your pathetic attempts to paint zionists as the victims, whilst the Palestinians continue to be oppressed, incarcerated and to have their land stolen and livelihoods wrecked make me sick.

Your suggestion that Palestinians can get justice from being oppressed, or that the zionist colonialists that you cheerlead are ever likely to give up their power without sanctions (which according to you would be racist) shows what a disingenuous, unpleasant human being you really are.

ftp

Well of course

01.10.2007 22:09

Of *course* the fine folks of BRICUP are going to say that. Did anybody expect anything different?

Did anybody expect them to say, "oooops, sorry for trying to force the UCU into an illegal boycott"?

Or did we all expect them to start casting about for Zionist conspiracies, which they did?

@%<

gehrig

gehrig - still obsessed by race

01.10.2007 23:10

"“It is all too common for governments and other bodies to go to a lawyer who will give them the advice they want to hear. This is how the then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith got the advice that the invasion of Iraq was ‘legal’”."

I note that gehrig hasn't given any explanation as to which part of the PACBI call was antisemitic.

All he keeps saying is that because the ringleaders are jewish, its illegal to do anything if you don't like their racist regime.

"· Denial of its responsibility for the Nakba -- in particular the waves of ethnic cleansing and dispossession that created the Palestinian refugee problem -- and therefore refusal to accept the inalienable rights of the refugees and displaced stipulated in and protected by international law;

· Military occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza since 1967, in violation of international law and UN resolutions;

· The entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, which resembles the defunct apartheid system in South Africa;"

Thats the charges which are the basis of the boycott call.

The racism charge is AGAINST Israel, not the other way round.

Like myself, BRICUP want to see the legal advice.

I can think of at least one lawyer who would be keen to challenge the ruling.

No doubt gehrig would call him "self-hating".

ftp

read closer, peeps

02.10.2007 01:32

"I note that gehrig hasn't given any explanation as to which part of the PACBI call was antisemitic."

Very simple. Anti-discrimination law in the UK does not have an "I didn't *mean* to" escape clause. It bans actions which are discriminatory *in effect*, not just discriminatory *in intent*. PACBI is calling for a boycott which is inevitably discriminatory against Jews *in effect*, and which is therefore illegal, even if we presume -- and that's an "if" -- that they did not intend to discriminate against Jews.

This is a fatal legal flaw in the very heart of their plans BRICUP was alerted to from the very beginning, chose in their hubris to ignore, and then found their campaign destroyed upon. Something Shakespearean in that.

And I think any reasonable reader of this site can easily see that it's not my alleged "racial fixation" that caused the UCU's own lawyers to judge that the proposed boycott was illegal, and that my alleged "racial fixation" is a figment of your defeat-induced vituperation.

"Like myself, BRICUP want to see the legal advice."

Surely, peeps, such an enormously gifted investigative reporter as yourself, for whom the world holds no secrets whatsoever, can have your hands on the document in mere hours.

C'mon, peeps! Show the world that UK Indymedia means more than just a place for Jordan Thornton to deposit his spam about the Zionists lurking in his morning cornflakes.

@%<

gehrig

gehrig - racist indeed

02.10.2007 07:06

Well, you seem to think the law is for the powerful, and you may be right.

If UCU leadership isn't just trying to use bollocks legal advice from a tame (or zionist) lawyer to shut down debate, no doubt they will respond to the BRICUP call, and will release the information, so that a challenge can be mounted.

If they fail to overturn it, we can use it against the politicos who called for sanctions on the Palestinians, for daring not to re-elect the corrupt Fatah quislings.

So now you allow for the fact that maybe it isn't anything to do with anti-semitism, and is every thing to do with the oppression of the Palestinians, but you say - "so what, it still amounts to "indirect discrimination" and "the only kind of justice I gehrig am interested in is in seeing Palestinians ground down and oppressed to the point where they will give up on any hope of justice, and will accept the role of passive second class citizens on their own land." Because your spiel about how the oppressed and oppressors are the only ones who can work it out, is not new. It was coming out of the mouths of Boers before it became apparent that Apartheid could not be sustained in South Africa.

And because you will insist that zionism IS judaism, when so many are clear that is nothing but a racist and unjust ideology that can only ever cause suffering and woe.

Your race fixation is contained there - a boycott of zionism is a boycott of jews - therefore it is just that it is illegal - regardless of the injustice that it causes. Of course the second bit of your racism is to blame Palestinians for their own oppression.

Following your line, Jews could set up any kind of crime ring they liked and it would be illegal to do anything about it. Hurrah for that. Justice ala gehrig!

ftp

learn to read

02.10.2007 13:01

"Well, you seem to think the law is for the powerful, and you may be right."

Learn to read, peeps; it'll enhance your quality of life considerably. For example, it means you won't say stupid things like this:

"So now you allow for the fact that maybe it isn't anything to do with anti-semitism"

No, as you'll discover once you make the leap into the wonderful world of literacy, I said that it may or may not have anything to do with intentional antisemitism, but certainly is antisemitic in its effect, its impact falling wildly disproportionately onto Jews.

Turns out, if you've read the latest UCU circular, that they've known the boycott would be illegal since their earliest legal advice in June. Maybe that's why the Simpletons With Placards, just a few days before the UCU announcement that the boycott was officially and permanently dead, said that they weren't planning on calling for a boycott.

And it tells us something sad about you that you persist in denial, and that your reflexive response is to mutter "I'll bet gehrig's a racist." Very persuasive. Oh, actually, not persuasive at all.

That's what leads you to say things like, "Following your line..." Because it's not just my line. It is the line of the UK's anti-discrimination laws. And it's the line of the UCU, which has now put every aspect of the boycott behind it except the Monday-morning whining of people like you.

@%<

gehrig

I see oppression - gehrig sees race

02.10.2007 13:13

"certainly is antisemitic in its effect, its impact falling wildly disproportionately onto Jews."

yes, I read you loud and clear gehrig.

"No action can be taken against the racist state, because the racist state's ideologues will claim it is racism that fuels it, intentional or otherwise."

Fortunately you'll not convince many here.

ftp

boycott campaign: ridiculous, abject waste of union time and resources

02.10.2007 15:18

"Fortunately you'll not convince many here."

Yes, funny what having your head embedded in concrete can do to your listening skills.

In the meantime, of course, the academic boycott campaign is history. All that time and energy, spiraling straight down the toilet -- which was, you may recall, exactly what I said would happen from the beginning. But at least you've been able to chant some of your slogans, and make some (libelous) accusations of "racism" -- a word you devalue by applying to opponents of the illegal boycott -- so it hasn't been a total waste for you, has it?

I mean, it hasn't been totally the ridiculous, abject waste of time, effort, energy, and money capped with an unambigious and immutable defeat that it appears to otherwise have been? You've had a chance to say some slogans. That's certainly worth the thousands of pounds out of the union coffers, isn't it.

Of course, you can still get your victory by undoing the anti-discrimination laws. The BNP would certainly help you with that little project.

@%<

gehrig

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