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Anti-Israel Academic Boycott Resource Centre
UCU boycott, NATFHE boycott, AUT boycott and other academic boycotts targetting Israeli universities

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The UCU Boycotts

Table of contents

The 2008 UCU Boycott proposals
Introduction to the 2007 UCU Boycott Support Motion
Index to the archive of articles and documents on the boycott
In Quotes...

The UCU 2008 Boycott proposals

For the last six months people have been asking me, "what's happening with those academic boycotts in the UK?" my answer has been that it's on hold. Not stopped, just on hold. Now the boycott train and start running again and we will again keep you informed as things develop.

The latest digest from the Academic Friends of Israel reveals that the UCU executive have sponsored a pro-boycott motion. It seems the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign has also cause the current head of the UCU to change to a position supporting the boycott. Please read the AFI digest for more on the current situation. The AFI's new website is also worth visiting and bookmarking.

Introduction to the 2007 UCU Boycott Support Motion

by Andre Oboler, Zionism On The Web (UK), 30 May 2007, updated 30th September 2007

The 2007 motion aproved by the UCU expressed clear support for a boycott and instructed the union executive to pass on Palestinian propoganda promoting a boycott to all branches "for information and discussion". Five months later, after taking legal advice, the UCU informed members that a boycott would be both discriminatory and illegal, and as a result it would also be illegal to spend union money organising the propoganda tour. They boycott was effectivly shelved.

Discrimination in the motion

The motion declared that neutrality over the middle east is not possible or desireable, in effect (as Ronnie Fraser of the Academic Friends of Israel explained) declaring war on Israel by the union. Such an idea of singling Israel out and treating it not on merit but as evil by nature falls foul of the European Union's legal definition of antisemitism.

Being such clever boffins, the UCU ofcourse had a solution. In the text of the motion the UCU by their own resolution have defined their boycott as "not antisemitic". At the time of the vote, the fact that the UK Government's report into antisemitism disagreed with them seems not to bother these clever people in the slightest.

The Vote

The vote was counted at 158 to 99, those infavour of promoting a boycott in the majority. After the vote the General Secretary of the Union, Sally Hunt, said "I do not believe a boycott is supported by the majority of UCU members, nor do I believe that members see it is a priority for the union".

The motion

The motion calls for the executive of UCU to:

The careful wording is a result of the past boycott efforts that saw the AUT threatened with legal action, and proposed boycotters informed by university administrations that they would be in breach of their contracts and liable to lose their jobs if they persued suggested boycott action.

However they are worded, such boycotts are discriminatory, against all academic values, and the result of radicals trying to hijack a number of unions in the UK for their own purposes.

Boycott moves declared illegal

On Friday the 28th of September the UCU put out a press release which stated: "a boycott call would be unlawful and cannot be implemented". The press release went on to say that "members' opinions cannot be tested at local meetings" and that "The proposed regional tour cannot go ahead under current arrangements and is therefore suspended".

The legal advice given to the UCU stated: '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 recognition by the UCU leadership of the discrimination in the policy passed by their annual conference was welcomed by the UK's higher education minister Bill Rammell, who said: "An academic boycott would not have done anything to further the Middle East peace process, in fact the reverse."

The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also welcomed the news say that: "the suspension of the impending boycott is important news for the Israeli academia. It supports the internationally held view that limiting the freedom of speech in academia is inherently wrong." She added that the successful campaign for the UCU to see the anti-Israel discrimination in their policy "proves that joint efforts can foil a cynical political move to undermine Israel's international legitimacy."

Ronnie Fraser of the Academic Friends for Israel said "While we welcome the UCU's decision to take the academic boycott of Israel off the agenda we remain concerned that the UCU still intends... calling for a moratorium on EU research and cultural collaborations with Israel." He added that the "part of the resolution [that] states that criticism of Israel cannot be construed as anti-semitic... is contrary to the EUMC definition of antisemitism and we therefore call upon the General Secretary and the NEC to publically condemn this part of resolution".

The next step...

Mean time an upcoming conference sponsored by PACBI and featuring a range of BRICUP activists will soon be meeting at SOAS to determine their next move in the boycott compaign. Sue Blackwell, a key promotor of the boycott and member of the BRICUP pro-boycott group responded to the UCU's announcement saying: "It is quite ridiculous. It is cowardice. It is outrageous and an attack on academic freedom." This line of logic is more commonly used by the far right British National Party, when for example, they are denied a platform to spread their discriminatory and racist filth. If legal advice was bring sense to the boycott advocates, perhaps a long hard look at themselves will. Or perhaps not. Despite appearances this might not be entirely over yet.


Notes to readers

This page contains our reports on the boycott as well as links to content from other sources which we have archieved here to assist researchers, academics and others wishing to engage with this topic. If you have additional material that may be relevent, e.g. press releases, news stories we missed, articles from university newspapers, press releases from other organisations, or motions from other unions in response to the UCU pro-boycott motion, please contact us at


To do something about the 2007 boycott, start by visiting:



In quotes...

Sue Blackwell: "This is about boycotting institutions about criticising the policies of the Israeli government not about individuals", ( "Boycott will destroy British academia, warns US professor" in The Guardian, Saturday June 9, 2007)

The last time academics were attacked like this, based on their membership of particular national or ethnic group, was in Nazi Germany. Then too it was not about individuals. After all, to the Nazis, Jews weren't really human anyway.

While there are plenty of ways to criticise policy, attacks on individuals - which is how a boycott works, is not an appropriate one. No more acceptable than sacking Sue Blackwell as a symbol of opposition to Britains war in Iraq.

Well done to Sue Blackwell for her utter disregard for fellow academics. I wonder how she feels about suicide bombers, after all... that too is not about the individual school children who get killed, at least not to the "militants".



Reproduced at Zionism On The Web for educational purposes only, please site the initial source as listed above