RESULT: UNISON Votes To Boycott Israel!

Last month delegates at the inaugural congress of the UCU voted in favour of a motion calling for the circulation of 'the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches for information and discussion'. Delegates deplored Israel's occupation of Palestine and the violation of Palestinian educational rights by curfews, checkpoints and travel restrictions. Although this is not a direct boycott of Israeli academia, the motion allows a Palestinian voice to be heard. This is a commendable decision made by the delegates at the UCU and highlights the moral stance of British academia.

As a result of this conceded campaign by the UCU, UNISON votes to boycott the Racist, Apartheid regime of Israel! Check out the following article by MPACUK:

http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/3772/64/

We Brits are known for our tolerance and sense of fair play. When Governments around the world stood by and did nothing about the apartheid in South Africa, it was ordinary men and women who stood against the racist regime. Over time their boycott spread from organisation to organisation, from churches and mosques, schools to universities, and finally the Governments of the World which had turned a blind eye to the injustices could no longer shy away, eventually taking their lead from the people.

UNISON is Britain's biggest trade union with over 1.3 million members. At its Annual Conference on 20th June 2007, the union passed Motion 53 on Palestine, stating that “ending the occupation demands concerted and sustained pressure upon Israel, including an economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott.”

The motion, which was passed to cheers from the hall, urges Israel to respect the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and to establish a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with its capital in Jerusalem.

MPACUK commends the decision made at the UNISON conference with their pledge to support Palestine.

This follows hot on the heels of the recent UCU motion to boycott Israel, please see:
- Support the Anti-Apartheid Boycott

We would encourage our readers to contact UNISON to offer their whole-hearted support and to thank them for leading the way in this noble effort.

Only if we the British people work together with our common sense of fair play can we give hope to our fellow men, women and children in the occuppied territories who are living under a brutal occupation. Let the people of Palestine know that they have not been forgotten.

What you can do:

- Contact UNISON thanking them for passing Motion 53 on Palestine.

email UNISION on:
irelations@unison.co.uk
And / Or

'Phone UNISON on:
0845 355 0845

Looks Like Mad Mel’s Been At It Again.

Notorious within the Muslim community with a title that seems more apt then just ‘Mad Mel’, Melanie Philips was named the "Most Islamphobic Media Personality of the Year " by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (in 2003).This time, she’s been in a major ding dong with Arab Media Watch and urged her fans/readers to write to them. Surprise, surprise, AMW were then inundated with racist hate mail…..coincidence? Me thinks not!


The Guardian on 18 June 2007 reported the row between Arab Media Watch and Daily Mail regular columnist and BBC Moral Maze regular Melanie Phillips, whose blog post urging her readers to write to us resulted in racist hate mail that we sent to the media.

This is what the Guardian had to say:

"An entertaining spat between the Mail's Melanie Phillips and Arab Media Watch has taken an unfortunate turn. The lobby group urged people to complain to the Mail over a Phillips column about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Phillips, in turn, suggested on her website that her readers might like to write to Arab Media Watch. And boy, have they written, reports its chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi. 'One might wonder whether she hoped for the kind of vulgar, racist abuse, not to mention grammatical and linguistic embarrassment that her blog post generated,' he writes. No room to reprint the messages in full, thank goodness, but suffice to say they included the phrase f*** off back to where you came from'. With readers like that, does Phillips need critics?"

AMW's press releases concerning the hate mail received are available at:

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/Articles/PressReleases/tabid/77/newsid391/3959/The-hate-mail-continues/Default.aspx

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/Articles/PressReleases/tabid/77/newsid391/3946/AMW-responds-to-Melanie-Phillips/Default.aspx

British Government Can Help End Siege on Palestinians

Violence between Hamas and Fatah have caused nearly 100 lives, Abas has 'dissolved' the Hamas government, and a state of emergency has been declared. The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign group have hit the nail on the head and outline how this catastrophe was sadly an inevitable outcome of the illegal Israeli occupation and the west refusing to recognise the elected Palestinian government.

PSC Letter in the Guardian - Causes of the crisis in Gaza
Friday 15th June 2007

http://www.palestinecampaign.org/

Causes of the crisis in Gaza

The current crisis in Gaza and the West Bank (Fatah on the run as Hamas wages battle for Gaza's streets, June 14) is the predictable outcome of the policy of Israel and the west of boycotting the democratically elected Palestinian government, which has repeatedly offered a comprehensive ceasefire and negotiations with Israel. The deliberate creation of a humanitarian crisis by the EU, the US and Israel is a shameful and cowardly attempt at regime change.


The refusal to recognise Palestinian democracy, including a unity government representing 96% of the electorate, has created despair. Following the Palestinian elections in January 2006, Israel and the west have punished the Palestinian people by depriving the Palestinian Authority of its own tax revenues and aid. A brutal siege has been placed upon the Palestinians, with Israel preventing even humanitarian supplies such as food and essential medical supplies from entering. The use of aid agencies is ineffective, as graphically demonstrated in the recent Oxfam report, as well as UN documents and the report of the World Bank.

Democratically elected Palestinian parliamentarians have been abducted and imprisoned by Israel - a third of the Palestinian legislature is incarcerated by Israel. The responsibility for the crisis lies with governments, including our own, which have created these intolerable conditions for Palestinians and continue to deny Palestinians basic human rights.


We call on the British government to act now: to end the siege on the Palestinians and immediately reinstate the funding to the Palestinian Authority; to respect Palestinian democracy and fully recognise the Palestinian Authority; to ensure Israel releases the imprisoned MPs and all other political prisoners; to act to end the Israeli occupation; and to ensure Israel abides by international law. The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, should use the EU meeting next Monday to press for these changes in EU policy.


Betty Hunter

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Academics Get Smart and Boycott Israel

Last week University lecturers backed calls for an academic boycott of Israel at their inaugural national conference. Delegates at the University and College Union (UCU) conference voted 158 to 99 to circulate its branches with the boycott call from Palestinian trade unions for "information and discussion".

The motion calling for an Israeli academic boycott came jointly from the University of Brighton and the University of East London. They asked members to rally to the call from Palestinian trade unions "for a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli institutions". Their motion also called on university lecturers to condemn the "complicity of Israeli academia in the [Palestinian] occupation".

And now our very own Tony Bliar is denouncing the boycott of Israel…man do these pro-Israeli lobbies have connections…

Blair: ‘Drop the boycott – it’s no good for peace’
http://www.thejc.com/

TONY BLAIR has led the worldwide condemnation of the British academics’ union supporting moves towards a boycott of Israeli universities. In the Commons on Wednesday, Mr Blair called on the University and College Union to drop the resolution, passed at its annual meeting last week.

“I hope very much that the decision is overturned because it does absolutely no good for the peace process or indeed for relations in that part of the world,” Mr Blair told MPs. “The only solution ultimately is to relaunch the framework for a negotiated peace with a two-state solution at the heart of it.”

The New York based Anti-Defamation League took out display advertisements in The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times and today’s JC pointing out that, at a time when journalists were being arrested in Iran, activists tortured in Zimbabwe and 400,000 people murdered in Darfur, “British unions have singled out Israel for boycott. That’s antisemitism.” – The inevitable anti-semtism card is played by the ADL!

A long term campaign has been launched by British Jewish leaders such as the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom), the Jewish Leadership Council and Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks.

I guess at times like these you can truly rely on the pro-Israeli lobbies to kick into overdrive and prioritise Israel over and above Britain:

A fundraising effort was also under way. “We are in this to win and campaigns like this do not come cheap,” Ms Fitzsimons pointed out. “The aim is to persuade [UCU general secretary] Sally Hunt to do as she promised in her election manifesto and hold a ballot of all UCU members on the boycott motion.”

Taken from the British anti-Zionist Jewish blogger Mark Elf.

To thank the UCU for passing a motion clearly standing against the state of Israel and defending the rights of Palestinians, use the below details. It only takes 5 minutes to email/call and log your appreciation. The Zionist lobbies have mobolised and orchestrated a campaign to try and get Sally Hunt and the UCU to overturn the motion. The least we could do is support those who dare to stand up to Zionist bullies and advocate justice and peace in the Middle East.

Sally Hunt
Joint general secretary
shunt@ucu.org.uk
02076709729

Paul Mackney
Joint general secretary
pmackney@ucu.org.uk

Head Office:
hq@ucu.org.uk