http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iAZe6vCLtKnL-oi5BMnSI94rzZPQ

Academics are set to reignite an international row as they urge fellow lecturers to consider whether they should sever links with Israeli universities.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) will highlight the “humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel” at their annual congress in Manchester.

A motion passed by the union last year provoked outrage from academics and politicians in Britain and overseas. The UCU meeting is set to reopen the row with a similarly worded call to members.

Speaking ahead of the debate Tom Hickey, a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Brighton, stressed that the new motion stopped short of backing a full boycott.

Mr Hickey, who is proposing the call, said: “It is not a resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. We are urging people to reflect on whether it is appropriate for them to maintain their links with Israeli institutions.

“It is one step short of urging people to consider a boycott,” he said.

Mr Hickey said UCU members around the country needed to discuss the situation in the Middle East in more detail before any moves towards a full boycott could begin.

The intention is for members to reflect on “the apparent complicity” of most Israeli academics in the “humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel”, according to the new motion.

It says union members should “be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions”.

The motion states that “criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, anti-Semitic”. But it notes the “continuation of illegal settlement, killing of civilians and the impossibility of civil life, including education” as a result of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.