UK’s Academic UCU Votes To Boycott Ariel University: Report from UK’s SPME Leaders

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The UK-based union for academics, the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU), has for years been attempting to invoke an academic boycott of Israel. Because of legal implications, and the work of SPME and others, they have not succeeded.

Nevertheless, a motion to impose an academic boycott of Israeli lecturers and institutions comes up year after year at the UCU conference. Most of the delegates at the annual conference are rabid left-wingers, severely anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, and, perhaps, antisemitic. We believe that the majority of UCU members do not support them.

In 2009, the UCU passed a motion stating that ‘Ariel College, an explicitly colonising institution in the West Bank, be investigated under the formal Greylisting Procedure’. And this year, the UCU has finally succeeded in their aims. UCU have passed a motion ‘to commence the investigatory process associated with the imposition of a boycott of Ariel College’. The motion presented at the conference talked about ‘the continuing colonisation of the West Bank – construction of illegal settlements, Israeli-only roads, diversion of Palestinian water, disaggregation of the territory, disruption of Palestinian life, destruction of olive groves and separation of Palestinian cultivators from their land, denial of educational and scholarly opportunities to Palestinians, and the continuing construction of the Wall; the contribution of Israel’s academy in this process – scientific and social and historical research, siting of annexes on illegally confiscated land, and support for military occupation; the particular contribution of Ariel College in this process – recruiting Israelis as settlers for their education – and the recent decision of Israel to recognise Ariel as a ‘university centre’, on the way to its establishment as a university on occupied territory.’ No background was presented to delegates and no dissent was allowed. But it’s typical of the UCU in their desire to ‘get at’ Israel. SPME supports Ariel College, at which we have members. We will attempt to reverse the UCU’s actions.

(At the same meeting UCU voted to sever relations with the Israeli trade union body, the Histadrut. This has led to calls for the resignation of the general secretary of the union, Sally Hunt, from the international portfolio on the Trades Union Congress’s General Council, which requires her to work closely with the Histadrut! This is the UCU – supporting boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, voting for a dedicated annual conference on BDS, and the creation of a website and research centre to investigate ‘commercial, cultural and academic complicity with Israeli breaches of international law’. Meanwhile, British academic jobs are under threat as never before, but the union that is supposed to defend them spends its time and resources, year after year, to campaign against Israel.

UK’s Academic UCU Votes To Boycott Ariel University: Report from UK’s SPME Leaders

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