Norway university board uninimously nixes Israel boycott

An academic boycott of Israel in Norway was averted yesterday, when the executive board of the University of Trondheim unanimously decided against the controversial move.

"The vote resulted in total victory," said Professor Bjorn Alsberg, a member of the board of the Trondheim-based Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Alsberg, a chemistry professor, led a campaign at Trondheim against the boycott.

He said that the vote to boycott Israel - which drew condemnations from Jewish organizations in Israel and elsewhere - was rejected after none of the 19 board members objected when NTNU Dean Torbjorn Digernes suggested the motion be scrapped from the meeting's agenda.

"Some of the people in attendance spoke in favor of scrapping the vote," Alsberg told Haaretz. "The main arguments raised were that Norwegian universities should not model their own foreign policies, and that a boycott would be harmful to NTNU," Alsberg said.

According to Alsberg, who collected signatures from more than 100 NTNU scholars against the boycott, the boycott was prevented due to "a combination of factors," including the media attention, the opposition to the boycott by the Norwegian Ministry for Higher Education and petitions, including his own.

But Erez Uriely, director of the Oslo-based Center against anti-Semitism, said the boycott was prevented largely thanks to Alsberg's petition.

"Norwegian politicians often take anti-Israeli positions and then renege when this creates an outcry," he said. "The petition against a boycott of Israel at NTNU is an unusual event which tipped the scale."