UPDATE ON UK TEACHERS UNION BAN ON ISRAELI UNIS

Jewish lecturers resign after AUT bans Israeli academics
The decision by Britain's 40,000 member Association of University Teachers (AUT) to boycott two Israeli universities on Friday [ED. SEE ENTRY BELOW] has ignited scathing condemnation from Jewish communities worldwide and has prompted the immediate resignation of Jewish academics from the AUT.

In a blitz procedure timed - on the eve of Passover - to exclude Jewish members from the conference, the AUT rushed through two motions to boycott Haifa and Bar Ilan universities, exhibiting an unprecedented escalation of a campaign by British academics to target Israel.

A jovial executive union meeting heard unanswered orations by Sue Blackwell and Shereen Benjamin, both lecturers at Birmingham University. The academics labeled Israel as a "colonial apartheid state, more insidious than South Africa," called for the "removal of this regime," and depicted Israeli universities as "repressing" academic freedom....

The speeches were met with rapturous applause from the audience, before AUT executive president Angela Roger cut short the session and moved to deny a right of reply to opponents of the motions. [ED. TALK ABOUT "REPRESSING ACADEMIC FREEDOM!"] The session was then directed towards a vote, and a "lack of time" was cited as the reason preventing challenges to the motions from being heard. The executive passed by sizeable majorities two separate motions adopting boycotts against Haifa University for its restricting academic freedom and against Bar Ilan university for its college located in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.

There was no opportunity for academics who had planned on opposing the motions, such as executive member Alistair Hunter, to address the conference. Dr. Hunter described the AUT's endorsement of a boycott against Israeli universities as an "ill judged decision" and expressed disgust at the absence of debate before voting commenced....

"The Palestinians are not boycotting Israeli universities," said Manson, "why should we?" [ED. INDEED. SEE THE PHOTOS HERE OF GRADUATION AT ONE OF THESE UNIVERSITIES] Professor Manson emphasized a need to "establish contacts in both communities," and spoke of advocating "dialogue and understanding." His motion was rejected by the executive after it was attacked by Sue Blackwell, who described it as "an insult to Palestinians."

Before the session, Sue Blackwell, a key figure in the anti-Israel boycott initiative, stood outside of the conference center in the coastal town of Eastbourne, draped in a Palestine flag. She was joined by kaffiya-clad activists of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who handed out leaflets branding Zionism as a "racist ideology," and accusing Israel of "ethnic cleansing."