Hunt urged all AUT members to avoid all academic or cultural cooperation with the Israeli universities.

LONDON, April 23, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Protesting endorsement of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, Britain's main university teachers' union decided on Friday, April 22, to boycott two major Israeli universities.

Association of University Teachers (AUT) General Secretary Sally Hunt, who announced the decision, urged all members to avoid all academic or cultural cooperation with the universities, reported Reuters.

AUT council, meeting in Eastbourne England, voted to boycott Bar-Ilan because it runs courses at colleges inside Ariel Jewish settlement, built on the occupied West Bank.

The body, the trade union and professional association for over 48,700 UK higher education professionals, accused the university of being “directly involved with the occupation of Palestinian territories contrary to United Nations resolutions”.

The UN Commission on Human Rights adopted last week a resolution condemning Israel’s settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories, pressing for an immediate freeze.

AUT Council also boycotted Haifa University over restricting the academic freedom of staff members who criticize the government.

The university has disciplined a lecturer for supporting a student who wrote about attacks on Palestinians during the founding of the state of Israel.

The boycott, which is not compulsory, will last until Haifa “ceases its victimization of academic staff and students who seek to research and discuss the history of the founding of the state of Israel,” stressed the AUT.

The AUT's executive committee said it would look further into a call to boycott a third university, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on charges that the institution had confiscated land owned by Palestinian families in Al-Quds (occupied east Jerusalem).

The decision came after a cohort of Palestinian academics appealed to the AUT to take action against Israeli universities.

The boycott decision drew fire from British university administrators and Jewish student groups.

“It is a betrayal of academic principles -- it looks like they are moving backwards into the hatred of the past few years,” said Union of Jewish Students spokesman Danny Stone.

Universities UK, representing university executives, called the boycott “inimical to academic freedom, including the freedom of academics to collaborate with other academics.”

Britain's community of about 10,000 Jewish students claimed that opposition to Israeli policies by student and teacher groups has fueled anti-Semitism.

Israel's embassy in London also issued a statement criticizing the decision, reported Haaretz Saturday, April 23.

It argued that the boycott was a “distorted decision that ignores the British public’s opinion.”

An EU poll released in October 2003 showed that the majority of Europeans see Israel as posing the biggest threat to world peace, just ahead of North Korea, Iran and the US.

The boycott of Israeli academics was first introduced in 2002 during the Israel’s onslaught on the West Bank, code-named Operation Defensive Shield, when the EU called for a moratorium on funding for Israeli research projects.

The idea was put forward by British professors Steven and Hillary Rose, and several Israeli academics also signed petitions in support of the boycott.