http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s18&SecId=18&AId=58884&ATypeId=1

Jewish leaders have resisted criticising Britain’s main teachers’ union over a motion set down for its annual conference that seeks to strengthen its ties with Palestine.

A report in The Guardian last Thursday claimed that the National Union of Teachers would be asked to buy an educational pack from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign “to be used in schools” and that the move would reignite the academic boycott controversy of last year.

While the motion talks about the NUT acquiring the educational pack, it makes no mention of schools or boycotts. The educational pack was meant for trades unionists and pro-Palestinian activists.

Jeremy Newmark, director of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “This is definitely not a boycott issue.”

Ronnie Fraser, chair of the Academic Friends of Israel, said: “The newspaper seems to have got the wrong end of the stick.”

Mr Fraser pointed out that the NUT executive had in any case tempered the original motion from the union’s Croydon branch to make it more even-handed.

“I fully support the efforts of the NUT’s executive which has in the past worked with both sides of the conflict,” said Mr Fraser.

The conference, to be held in Manchester, has voted through Israel-critical motions in the past but has rarely called for substantial action. As has happened for some years past, there will be observers from both the Israeli and Palestinian teachers’ associations.