BRITAIN/CANADA: Unions vote for Israel boycott

On May 29, Britain's National Association of Teachers and Further and Higher Education voted to support an academic boycott of Israel's higher education institutions. NATFHE, which represents more than 67,000 educators, also passed a motion condemning Israeli attacks on Palestinian educational institutions and universities and called for the maintenance of ties with the Palestinian Authority. In April 2005, another British teachers' union, the Association of University Teachers, passed a motion supporting a similar academic boycott against Israel's Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities, voting to ban the universities from AUT conventions and research projects. The vote, however, was overturned the following month after a widespread campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists. Two days before the NATFHE resolution, the Ontario division of Canada's largest union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, also voted to support the international campaign to boycott Israel. The CUPE motion recognised the right of Palestinians to self-determination and condemned Israel's illegal apartheid wall.

From Green Left Weekly, June 14, 2006.

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From GLW issue 671