Academic blacklist season again?

Norman Geras (Normblog)
May 9, 2006

More Geoffrey talk (updated)

Haaretz is reporting a new move - from NATFHE - to blacklist Israeli academics who haven't made a suitable political declaration:

The largest university and college lecturers union in Britain is likely to decide shortly to recommend that its 67,000 members boycott [i.e., blacklist --JW] Israeli lecturers and academic institutions that do not publicly declare their opposition to Israeli policy in the territories.

The boycott motion, which was drafted by the southeast region of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), will be brought to a vote at its annual national conference, which will be held May 27-29. It comes about a year after the last boycott by British lecturers.
.....
Unlike the previous boycott, which targeted two specific institutions, the current motion relates to all lecturers and academic institutions in Israel. Now that the University of Haifa has threatened the AUT with a lawsuit, the NATFHE motion is more cautious: instead of recommending the lecturers union boycott Israeli institutions, it calls on the union to suggest its members carry out the boycott [i.e., a secret, unofficial blacklist; sound familiar? --JW].

Read the rest. Time to redouble efforts like these. (Thanks: the KP.)

Update at 4.15 PM: See now Jon Pike. [Also this piece by Ami Isseroff and Bradley Burston's "The need to boycott Israel". --JW]

Posted by Norm at 11:40 AM | Permalink