The email below was sent out to UCU branches a couple of weeks ago. We have obtained a copy. In it, UCU’s General Secretary and President try to promote a boycott of Israel without actually promoting a boycott of Israel.

UCU has a problem:

1. It’s illegal and discriminatory for UCU to promote or organise an academic boycott of Israel. This has been repeatedly confirmed by the Union’s own lawyers and by Stop the Boycott.
2. However, UCU’s Socialist-Worker-dominated structures have voted to pursue just such an unlawful and discriminatory boycott policy anyway

Any sensible Trade Union would have never allowed itself to get into this situation, and would have just ruled the boycott motions as ultra vires. It seems that UCU is so obsessed with Israel that it’s prepared to risk breaking the law to promote its discriminatory policy.

UCU has tried to get round this contradiction by promoting a boycott while pretending, at the same time, that it’s doing nothing of the sort.

We’re not fooled, and we don’t think you will be either once you read it. This email below is proof that UCU is promoting a boycott of Israel against its own legal advice.

UCU/350   April 2011

University and College Union

Carlow Street, London NW1 7LH Telephone 020 7756 2500

To	Branch and local association secretaries
Topic	Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS)
Action	For information
Summary	A summary of existing UCU policy and advice on Palestine/Israel
Contact	Paul Bennett, Senior National Official ([email protected])

 

Dear Colleague

Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) – the Case of Israel; and the Case of Ariel College, occupied West Bank

At the last meeting of the union’s Strategy and Finance Committee it was agreed that in the run up to Congress the president should circulate to branches and local associations for information the attached summary of existing UCU policy and advice on Palestine/Israel.

Yours sincerely

 

Sally Hunt

General secretary

Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) – the Case of Israel; and the Case of Ariel College, occupied West Bank

Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions

You will be aware that the matter of boycott in relation to Israeli academic institutions has been part of an on-going debate in the UCU for some time.  The question has been raised at successive Congresses in relation to a number of related issues, and branches and regions have been asked to discuss the question, and to invite speakers where appropriate. This was, quite properly, a protracted process so that colleagues in branches had much time to reflect before branch delegates to our annual Congress finally determined UCU policy.

I do not intend to rehearse either side of the argument here in any detail. In essence, however, the case for a boycott hinged on the complicity of all Israeli academic institutions in the continuance of an illegal occupation of the West Bank (research on weaponry, psychology of interrogation and pacification, surveillance, training of occupation forces, anthropological and philosophical reasons and rationalisations, etc.), and a failure to dissociate themselves from the occupation, and its adverse effects on Palestinian education and the academic freedom of its scholars, or from the discriminatory treatment of the Palestinian population within Israel’s pre-1967 borders.

The case against the boycott concerned two claims: the illegitimacy of singling out Israel for such treatment amongst all the nation states that engage in oppressive and discriminatory policy, and the consequently implicit anti-Semitism entailed in the proposal for a boycott of Israel; and the unacceptability of ever infringing academic freedom by ostracizing any section of the global academic community, and particularly a section (Israeli institutions) which makes such a distinctive and disproportionate contribution to knowledge and technique.

At our last Congress, delegates again debated the policy, this time on the issue of the general application of a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions policy. The motion debated is reproduced below for information. The decision of Congress, on the vote of the overwhelming majority of delegates, was to adopt this motion unamended as the policy position of the UCU.

Since this issue was debated at UCU Congress last year, it has been adopted by an increasing number of trade unions in the TUC, and is the policy of the Scottish TUC. It is also the policy of a growing number of trade unions and trade union federations internationally. Within the last year, it is a policy that has also been adopted by a minority of Israeli academic colleagues and scholars.

Advice to Members

I am writing to you now, on the advice of the National Executive, simply to inform you of this fact. This information does not constitute an instruction from the UCU to implement a boycott of Israeli academic institutions or of Israel in general. The UCU is not in a position to issue such an instruction to members. Nor is it an individual invitation to members from me, as President, or from the NEC, to operate such a boycott. That is a matter for the individual conscience of each of us. The point of this communication is simply to draw your attention to the policy position of your union. How individual members decide to act in relation to that information is a matter for them.

Ariel College

A related matter concerned the issue of Ariel College. You will see the motion below that was passed, again overwhelmingly, about this institution. Ariel College is located in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. The mission statement of the College clearly specifies its role. The process by which it is to be granted university status is currently a matter of dispute in Israel, where many Israeli scholars are disquieted both by the process itself, and by the implication of installing a university on occupied land.

The motion is self-explanatory. The Strategy and Finance Committee will be taking forward the issue of an investigation.

Emergency Motion

A related Emergency Motion was also passed on the morning of the Congress that Israeli forces attacked the aid flotilla to Gaza. The text of that motion is also reproduced here.

Further Information

Members requiring further information on the policy of BDS or about Ariel College are advised to pursue their own web-based search initially, and then to contact the relevant organizations. Those who are interested in the issue of education in Israel and in the Occupied Territories could start with the chapter on Palestine in the 2009 study of academic freedom internationally by James Cemmell commissioned by the UCU (http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/r/h/acdemic_freedom_palestine.pdf ).^[1]

 

Alan Whitaker

President, UCU

 

31 Palestine solidarity, BDS, and Histadrut – University of Brighton Grand Parade

Congress notes

n   the successful international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) conference hosted by the UCU in line with Congress policy;

n   the statement that emerged from that conference, and the call from the Palestinian Boycott National Committee for an isolation of Israel while it continues to act in breach of international law.

Congress resolves:

n   to reaffirm its support for BDS, and to seek its implementation within the constraints of the existing law;

n   to seek in conjunction with other trade unions, nationally and internationally, to establish an annual international conference on BDS, a trade union sponsored BDS website and a research centre on commercial, cultural and academic complicity with Israeli breaches of international law, with appropriate cost sharing;

n   to sever all relations with Histadrut, and to urge other trade unions and bodies to do likewise;

to campaign actively against the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and to coordinate that campaign with other trade unions and solidarity movements.

CARRIED

 

32 Ariel and West Bank Colonisation – University of Brighton Falmer

Congress notes

n   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;

n   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;

n   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.

Congress resolves to commence the investigatory process associated with the imposition of a boycott of Ariel College.

CARRIED

 

L11    Emergency motion

Congress is appalled at the Israeli act of piracy in international waters on 31 May. It condemns the armed attack on the Gaza convoy and the murders of people seeking to bring aid to the people of Gaza suffering from the Israeli and Egyptian blockade.

Congress believes this constitutes a prima facie crime against humanity.

Congress believes that the senior Israeli government members and senior military and naval officers responsible for commissioning this action should be tried for this crime.

Congress demands that the UK government does not change the rules on universal jurisdiction to impede bringing the people responsible for these murders to justice.

CARRIED

 

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^[1] Cemmell, J. Academic Freedom: International Study (Burma, Columbia, Israel, Palestine, Zimbabwe), UCU, London, 2009