BRITISH ACADEMIA WANTS TO BE JEW-FREE

British academics revive dispute on Israel.

LONDON - Members of Britain’s largest college teachers’ union have reignited a fierce debate about academics and politics by asking colleagues to consider boycotting Israel over what it calls “apartheid” policies toward the Palestinians. The 67,000-member National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education is to debate the boycott proposal Monday at its annual conference in the English resort city of Blackpool. The motion “notes continuing Israeli apartheid policies” including the construction of the separation wall between Israel and the West Bank, and asks members to consider a boycott “of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies.”

The wording of the proposal is vague but it presumably would keep members, the equivalent of U.S. university and community college instructors, from working with Israeli academics who do not renounce their government’s policies toward the Palestinians. The teachers’ association said it did not have an official position on the motion, which was put forward by a regional branch. No one from the regional branch wished to speak to the media.... Professor Richard Seaford, a classicist at Exeter University, told the British Broadcasting Corp. this week that he and other academics were already engaged in an informal boycott, refusing to submit work to Israeli journals or collaborate with Israeli academics.

OF COURSE, IF THEY BOYCOTT JEWISH ACADEMICS, THE QUALITY OF BRITISH SCHOLARSHIP WILL GO INTO THE TOILET.