Britain - More than 10,000 academics sign petition against U.K. boycott bid

More than 10,000 people have signed a petition denouncing attempts to mount an academic boycott against Israel. The petition was initiated in early June by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), an independent, faculty-driven, nonprofit group.

SPME says the signatories are academics from various countries who "all agree that singling out Israelis for an academic boycott is wrong."

"To show our solidarity with our Israeli academics in this matter, we, the undersigned, hereby declare ourselves to be Israeli academics for purposes of any academic boycott. We will regard ourselves as Israeli academics and decline to participate in any activity from which Israeli academics are excluded," the petition states.

The petition is being signed electronically via the SPME Web site, where it was posted on June 4 to dispute the legitimacy of the British University and College Union's call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The union called for the boycott as a protest against Israel's policies in the West Bank.

Source: www.haaretz.com

Date: July 30, 2007

By Tamara Traubmann

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