Last update - 01:35 25/09/2006
Irish academics call for EU boycott of Israeli schools
By Tamara Traubmann
Academics from Ireland are calling on the European Community to place a moratorium on support for Israeli institutions of higher learning "until Israel abides by UN resolutions and ends the occupation of Palestinian territories," according to a letter published in the Irish Times last Saturday.
Sixty-one Irish academics signed the letter, which stated, "The Israeli government appears impervious to moral appeals from world leaders and to long-standing United Nations resolutions."
"Academic boycotts are in opposition to the international principle of academic freedom, Professor Yosef Yeshurun, chairman of the International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom (AB), said in response. According to Yeshurun, whose organization was founded on the initiative of Bar-Ilan University, boycotts "isolate and demonize" Israel, and are "anti-Zionism that has become a kind of anti-Semitism."
The call for the moratorium follows an appeal by Palestinian organizations for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. In May the U.K.'s National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NAFTHE) decided to support an academic boycott, followed by Canada's Union of Public Employees. In July, the labor unions of the African National Congress also called for a boycott of Israel. In February a group of British architects called for a ban on companies involved in constructing the separation fence and settlements. At the beginning of September, a group of British and Palestinian architects sought to bar Israel from participating in the architecture Biennale in Venice.