Meretz USA Condemns British Academic Resolution Fostering Israel Boycott
06/10/07
The Executive Board of Meretz USA adopted a resolution on Sunday, June 10,
opposing a recently passed resolution of Great Britain's University and College
Union (UCU) promoting the boycott of Israeli academics and academic
institutions.
Calling the UCU resolution, "an attack on the very
academic freedom that must be preserved for both Israelis and Palestinians...,"
the Meretz USA Board instead proposed a number of measures of positive
engagement between British, Israeli, and Palestinian academics including forums,
dialogue, research, and contact to advance and strengthen the prospects of peace
and reconciliation.
The full text of the Meretz USA resolution follows:
(Adopted at the meeting of the
Meretz USA Executive Board, June 10, 2007)
Meretz USA* has historically and
consistently opposed boycott, divestment, or other methods of indiscriminate
pressure against Israel as a means of influencing the Arab-Israeli conflict. In
simple terms, such efforts, in which Israel is singled out for blame, are
polarizing and inappropriate methods of impacting a complex conflict in which
rights and wrongs obtain on both sides.
It is for
these reasons that we condemn the resolution recently passed by Britain's
University and College Union (UCU), which pushes the union, its local units and
individual members toward a boycott of all Israeli academic
institutions.
The UCU resolution is an attack on
the very academic freedom that must be preserved for both Israelis and
Palestinians. It attacks fellow academics, not the political and military
measures that the organization opposes. Furthermore, anyone with any knowledge
of Israel must surely be aware that opposition to the occupation is widespread
among Israeli academics. A boycott of Israeli academics would only serve to
alienate many Israelis who support Palestinian rights, undermine the Israeli
peace movement, and thereby weaken the prospect of securing these
rights.
Those groups and individuals who, like
us, wish to see the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians terminated and a just
peace between Israel and Palestine established should direct their energies to
encouraging free dialogue, meaningful governmental negotiations, and positive
support for joint Palestinian and Israeli NGO initiatives; not boycotts or other
efforts that disrupt the free flow of ideas, communication and information and
undermine trust.
If the UCU is seriously
interested in strengthening the peace process and realizing a future in which
two states, Israel and Palestine, coexist in peace and security, it should
instead:
- Promote contacts with Israeli and Palestinian academics who support a program of peace and national coexistence;
- Promote forums which bring together Israeli and Palestinian academics to advance dialogue;
- Promote Israeli-Palestinian peace research among academics;
- Promote discussion among academics and intellectuals of non-governmental peace initiatives such as the Geneva Initiative.
Noting the personal opposition of UCU General Secretary, Sally Hunt, to this resolution; and
Noting the clarification of the UCU National Executive Committee that the resolution does not call directly for an academic boycott of any Israeli institutions at this stage:
We call upon the leadership of the UCU to advise the union's members to revoke this pernicious resolution as swiftly as possible, and upon the UCU's membership to resoundingly turn aside the boycott proposal in their upcoming consultations.
* Meretz USA for Israeli Civil Rights and Peace, a progressive Zionist organization, supports an end to the 40-year-old occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, a negotiated two-state land-for-peace solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a full and comprehensive peace between the State of Israel and all of its neighbors.