ANOTHER BRITISH ISRAEL BOYCOTT?

British academics try another boycott
Another British lecturers union will consider an academic boycott of Israel.

The Association of University Teachers overturned its blacklist of two Israeli institutions this week, but the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education is set to raise the issue at its annual conference this weekend. Scheduled during Sunday’s session is a meeting where the Open University’s Steven Rose — one of the initiators of the AUT boycott — will speak in favor of shunning Israeli academic institutions.

Anti-boycott activists are appalled by the move. Ronnie Fraser, an association member and chair of the Academic Friends of Israel lobby group, sought legal advice on the proposal, which was raised at a meeting of the London chapter one Saturday — a meeting that Fraser, an Orthodox Jew, couldn’t attend.