SUCCESS!
UCU says boycott 'illegal', cannot be implemented.
On Friday, UCU announced that they had accepted legal advice that an academic boycott of Israel would be unlawful and could not be implemented.
As a consequence of this, the union has instructed its branches that they should not boycott Israeli academics or institutions. The planned regional ‘roadshow' debates on the boycott have also been cancelled.
You can read UCU's press release on their website, here.
Without the sustained pressure of the Stop the Boycott campaign supported by you and thousands of others, UCU wouldn't have been compelled to seek the advice they did.
The boycott was ultimately defeated by legal means, but Stop the Boycott had already won the the argument. It was clear that the majority of UCU members opposed a boycott, and this would have been proved in due course by a membership ballot. Even the Socialist Workers Party admitted that a membership ballot on the issue would smash the boycott. In the end, the boycott call has been defeated, protecting academic freedom, preventing discrimination and probably saving UCU itself.
Everyone who contributed - academics inside and outside the UCU, campaigners and anyone who donated money to Stop the Boycott - has a share in the victory and deserves our heartfelt thanks.
Commenting on the UCU decision Lorna Fitzsimons, CEO of BICOM said:
"We welcome the UCU's intervention and decision to abandon plans for a boycott. The boycott is like a cancer at the heart of labour movements and we will try and cut it out wherever we find it. We will continue to win the intellectual argument, showing why any boycott of Israel is unbalanced, unfair and ignores the difficult complexities of the Middle East.
A boycott was never the right answer for those looking to genuinely help Palestinians and Israelis. As Palestinian officials have said all along, punishing Israeli academics achieves nothing and does not help the Palestinians.
Jeremy Newmark, Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said.
"This is a victory against the boycotters on two fronts. Firstly, the legal opinion endorses our contention that the proposed UCU boycott was a form of discrimination that had no place in a UK trade union. Secondly, last week's explicit admission by the main pro-boycott faction that they would have lost a ballot proved our assertion that a boycott is not supported by the vast majority of UCU members."
Professor David Newman, Head of Geo-Politics at Ben Gurion University is the official academic representative of Israel for all matters relating to a potential academic boycott. He said:
"This is now the time for senior British academics to strengthen their ties with their Israeli colleagues and cement links and relationships to make sure a boycott of this nature can never be implemented. I reiterate the call to all academics to maintain an open dialogue and a free exchange of thoughts and ideas as this is the only way a lasting, sustainable peace can be achieved in the Middle East."
Jessica Truman, Chairperson of the Union of Jewish Students, said:
"I'm proud of the role Jewish students played in the campaign to overturn the boycott and am delighted at the decision."
