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Norway university to vote next month on boycott of Israel
By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: university of Trondheim 

The university of Trondheim in Norway may become the first university in the West to adopt an academic boycott of Israel, if a majority of its board votes in favor of the move at a meeting on the subject next month.

Three days prior to the November 12 vote by the board of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the institution will host a lecture on Israel's alleged use of anti-Semitism as a political tool.

The lecture, by Prof. Moshe Zuckermann of Tel Aviv University, is part of a controversial six-session seminar on Israel that is comprised entirely of Norwegians and Israelis known for highly critical attitudes toward Israel.
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Prof. Morten Levin, an NTNU lecturer and member of the seminar's organizing committee, set up the series of lectures - which also featured Ilan Pappe and Stephen Walt - with Ann Rudinow Saetnan and Rune Skarstein. All have signed a call for an academic boycott of Israel.

In a letter this week to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, called the seminar "a new stage in Norwegian incitement to Jew-hatred" and "outrageously anti-Israel bigotry."

According to a scientist working at NTNU who spoke to Haaretz on condition of anonymity, the idea of holding a vote on boycotting Israel was modeled on the campaign run by Sue Blackwell, a leading proponent of an academic boycott of Israel in the United Kingdom.

A group of pro-Israel employees of NTNU are currently looking for ways to prevent the boycott from being adopted, drawing on the legal reasoning that in 2007 prompted Britain's University and College Union - of which Blackwell is a prominent member - to nix plans for a boycott of Israel.

According to people who fought the U.K. boycott motion, it was dropped after legal consultants told UCU officials that a boycott of Israel would violate anti-discrimination laws. "We have to see how similar the laws in Norway are," the Trondheim scientist said.

"If this were the U.K., [a boycott] would be illegal. But this is Norway, where these things may fly," said Manfred Gerstenfeld, chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, who has published a book on anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in the Nordic countries.
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  1.   Out Voted in a Democratic Election 05:30  |  Steve of Mevaserret 30/10/09
  2.   Not surprised 05:33  |  leoblue 30/10/09
  3.   Why? 05:57  |  Matt 30/10/09
  4.   Question should Moshe Zuckerman and Pappe be boyocetted 2? 06:25  |  arthur 30/10/09
  5.   EU anti-semites 06:40  |  Canadian 30/10/09
  6.   Get Real 11:57  |  Spock 30/10/09
  7.   Would not work 12:39  |  Guido 30/10/09
  8.   Boycotting the University of Trondheim? 12:50  |  Peter 30/10/09
  9.   Anti-semitic boycott??? #8 Peter 01:36  |  Ron 31/10/09
  10.   Zionism Did Not End Anti-Semitism (#9) 05:13  |  Steve of Mevaserret 31/10/09
  11.   # 8 and why would the world want to do that, peter... 06:12  |  eric 31/10/09
  12.   #11 eric Because Israeli academics are important for the world.. 16:57  |  S 31/10/09
  13.   Anti-semitism is a knee-jerk charge #10 Steve 21:20  |  Ron 31/10/09
  14.   # 12 ALL academics are important to the world, "S" (2nd try) 01:37  |  eric 01/11/09
  15.   "israel`s alleged use of anti-semitism as a political tool"? (2nd 01:43  |  eric 01/11/09
  16.   Guido, "friends" don`t commit war crimes and possible crimes... 03:57  |  BBSNews 01/11/09
  17.   Growing number of boycotts against Israel# #12 S 22:15  |  Ron 01/11/09
  18.   Ron #17 No need to work on a comprehensive list of boycotts... 10:08  |  S 02/11/09
  19.   Boycotts of Israel and international law. #18 S 21:06  |  Ron 02/11/09
  20.   eric #14 Your post has nothing to do with mine... 09:58  |  S 03/11/09
  21.   norway u. boycott 21:10  |  yehoshua rosin 06/11/09
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