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June 26, 2007
Lawrence Boxall
Academic Boycott controversy at UBC
In a strongly worded condemnation of Britain's University and College Union's decision to consider a boycott of Israeli universities posted to the website of the President of the University of British Columbia, UBC President Stephen J Toope calls the threatened boycott ”a dangerous and unsupportable attack on the core values of academic life.“
Posted on June 15, 2007, the statement is labelled as a "comment" which leaves it open to conjecture about whether it is the personal opinion of Professor Toope or the official view of the UBC Administaration. The statement suggests that what the British union viewed as a legitimate political act against the complicity of Israeli universities in the oppression of the Palestinian people is in fact an attempt by one group of scholars to "stiffle the views of another."
The statement goes on to describe the decision as a "shameful scheme" and calls on its supporters to “reflect on the example and consequence of intolerance they are communicating to their students." In arguing for the importance of academic freedom, Professor Toope states: “The world desperately needs more international trade in ideas; we cannot afford less.
The statement concludes: “If a university is not a safe forum for ideas, popular or otherwise, it fails in its very purpose.” Read full statement
An interesting open letter in response to Professor Toope's comment on the boycott of Israeli academics draws attention to the plight of Palestinian academics. The letter, which began making the rounds at UBC yesterday, is written by Christopher Harker a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at UBC who has also spent time at the Palestinian Birzeit University in Ramallah recently.
Here is the full text of the letter:
Dear Prof. Toope,
In response to your comment in support of Israeli academic freedom, I am writing to enquire if you will be publishing a similar statement on the main university web-page supporting academic freedom and institutions in Palestine? Furthermore, I would like to ask whether this comment is solely your opinion, or is intended to reflect the opinion of the university at large?
Given the completely assymetric nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I feel the support offered in your comment in fact hinders resolution. Should you wish to learn more about academic freedom in the Occupied Territories, may I recommend Birzeit University's ‘Right to Education’ campaign. Alternatively, having spent 10 months in Birzeit over the last two years, I would be happy to relate my experiences of the academic ‘freedom’ Palestinian students and academics are currently enduring.
Sincerely
Christopher Harker
PhD Candidate, Dep't of Geography
Palestininian student position on the boycott of Israeli academics
R2E Student Committee welcomes UNISON boycott
Source
Right to Education Student Committee, Right to Education Campaign, 21 June 2007
The Right to Education (R2E) Student Committee in Birzeit University welcomes the motion passed by UNISON, the biggest trade union of public workers in the UK (text below), and calls for student-wide mobilisation on boycotting Israel as a means to defend the right to education of Palestinians and end the occupation.
"We congratulate UNISON on their courageous move to speak out against the Israeli policy of tyranny and isolation of Palestine, especially at a time when the international community is silent and vicious witch-hunts were carried out against those who dared speak up.
As Palestinian students we are suffering from an economic blockade which has impoverished our communities, checkpoints which humiliate us and steal our time daily, pass-systems which prevent us from seeing our families and immigration controls which stop many of us from leaving and prevents international students from accessing our universities. We call on academics and students worldwide to seek the facts and speak out!" - said the Committee in a statement.
The Birzeit University Student Council, representing 7,600 students, also declares its support for the boycott. Last year it famously managed to replace all Israeli products on campus with Palestinian ones or other alternatives. This is a significant feat considering the 'free-trade' arrangement between Israel and its occupied territories which effectively allows Israeli products to flood the Palestinian market. Israel also controls all borders of the occupied territories thus controlling all import-export activities.
The R2E Student Committee also points out that the academic boycott is an institutional boycott that does not prevent Israeli academics from speaking or publishing their work. It is not a witch-hunt. It requests the suspension of institutional links and calls for Israeli academics to speak up against the breaches of humanitarian law and basic human rights committed in their name. The message the Committee's students want to get across to Israeli academics is simple:
"The situation is intolerable. There is currently no outside pressure reining-in Israeli state practice in the occupied territories. Change must come before worse atrocities are allowed to happen."
Text of UNISON Motion on Israel that Professor Toope comments on
Source
Motion : AgendaID 054 - Sanctions Against Israel
Conference notes that, during 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon and Gaza, withheld tax revenues form the Palestine Authority and refused dialogue with the elected Authority following the democratic elections of January 2006, re-sealed the borders of Gaza, expanded illegal settlements in the West Bank, and continued the construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall. Israeli policy represents a calculated defiance of international law and the United Nations (UN), with the collusion of the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK) and European Union (EU) which cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Conference repudiates the Blair government's consistent stand in support of the Israeli government throughout the shameful events of 2006, even joining the US in failing to call for a ceasefire amidst worldwide condemnation of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
UNISON believes the appropriate response is to support the growing international moves towards a union-based campaign of boycott and sanctions against Israeli institutions, in line with the call from over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations including the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions and individual unions and labour collectives.
UNISON welcomes the moves in 2006 towards implementing the campaign of Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) including those by the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) in Ireland, the Ontario region of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Congress of South African Unions (COSATU), and the open letter from artists supporting a cultural boycott.
UNISON resolves to participate fully in this growing international campaign by:
1 promoting discussion of these issues at branch and regional level through union publications, and involving the membership in conjunction with regional international committees;
2 continuing cooperation with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign at national, regional and local level;
3 investigating how UNISON members may be involved in trade with Israel or with key companies active in this trade;
4 highlighting to members the scope for consumer boycott of such trade;
5 investigating whether pension funds may have investments in Israel or in key companies trading with Israel, and seeking disinvestment from any such pension links;
6 supporting members who are able to take union-based action in line with Conference policy;
7 organising regional conferences where possible in cooperation with other Trades Union Congress affiliates and with PSC, to discuss the BDS campaign;
8 reviewing progress at the Nation Executive Council quarterly.
Conference recognises that the BDS policy will be opposed by the Israeli trade union federation Histadrut. Conference notes that the Histadrut expressed no opposition to the invasions of Lebanon or Gaza, nor to the apartheid wall, throughout 2006 despite its own substantial economic conflicts with the Israeli government. Conference considers that appropriate relations with the Histadrut are based on explaining our union's policy and encouraging the Histadrut to condemn the Israeli government's blatant violations of international law.
Conference reaffirms UNISON's right and desire to act in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Text of related UNISON Motion on Palestine
Source
Motion : AgendaID 053 - Palestine
Conference continues to consider that a just solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict must be based upon international law and Israel should:
1 withdraw to its 1949-67 borders;
2 allow the refugees of 1948 to return home;
3 remove all its settlements from the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Occupied Syrian Al-Joulan;
4 take down the Apartheid Wall; and
5 respect the Palestinian people's right to national self-determination and to establish a state in the West bank and the Gaza Strip with its capital in Jerusalem.
Conference notes that the Israeli occupation has now continued for 40 years. It welcomes the formation of the "Enough!" coalition to focus protest on this anniversary.
But Conference believes that ending the occupation demands concerted and sustained pressure upon Israel including an economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott.
Conference condemns the economic sanctions imposed upon the Occupied Palestinian Territories following Palestinian Parliamentary Elections of 25 January 2006, which make worse the appalling economic circumstances of the occupation. It is a unique example of economic sanctions imposed, not upon an occupier, but upon a population struggling against illegal military occupation.
Conference instructs the National Executive Council to:
a continue to campaign with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others as appropriate;
b) continue to develop capacity building projects with the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions
(PGFTU);
c) call upon the United Kingdom government to end the arms trade with Israel;
d) produce UNISON's own material on Palestine to build knowledge among members;
e) consider inviting a PGFTU delegation to tour regions;
f) seek ways to work with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and other trade unions on the basis of
the TUC 2006 Congress resolution;
g) raise the issue of Palestine with UNION's overseas partners and with international trade union
federations with the aims of:
i) suspending the European Union/Israel Association Agreement; and
ii) a mandatory United Nations Arms Embargo on Israel of the kind the Security Council imposed
on South Africa in 1977; and
h) encourage branches and regions to affiliate to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), help
build PSC branches and consider twinning with PGFTU organised public sector workers in Palestine.
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