I was at Elton John’s sold-out concert last night at Ramat Gan stadium, and thought this greeting he delivered was spot-on and deserves wide distribution.

Elton told the crowd that he was happy to be back in Israel (he played here in 1993), and in a reference to anti-Israel boycotters who called on him to cancel the show, proudly proclaimed “ain’t nobody gonna stop us from coming here.” He said that as a musician his job was to spread love and peace, and that “we don’t cherry-pick our conscience,” a line for which he received extended applause.

I took this to be a sharp dig at the hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness of figures in the West who focus their ire almost exclusively on Israel, and particularly at his fellow musicians who have recently cancelled their shows here, such as Elvis Costello, the Pixies, Gil Scott-Heron and others.

How many musicians have cancelled their concerts in America because of the thousands of civilians the U.S. military has killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and in drone attacks in Pakistan?

• UCU Congress begins this weekend, running from 30th May – 1st June, in Manchester
• This year, UCU Congress will debate three motions that relate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

• The first of these, SFC14, encourages the Union to build links with Palestinian academics and unions

• The second motion, SFC15, is called “Palestinian Solidarity, BDS, and Histadrut”
• It reaffirms UCU’s support for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel “within legal constraints”
• It forces UCU to establish and fund a “research centre into complicity with Israeli breaches”, a BDS website, and an annual pro-boycott conference
• It demands UCU severs all ties with the Histadrut, the Israeli TUC
• An amendment to this motion would refer the decision on Histadrut to a special committee

• The third motion, SFC16 “Ariel and West Bank Colonisation”, formally starts the procedure to institute an academic boycott against Ariel College

• Additionally, a motion SFC17, called “UCU invitation to Bongani Masuku of South Africa”, comes from Oxford University’s UCU branch
• It was submitted in response to UCU’s invitation of Bongani Masuku to a UCU boycott conference this winter
• It dissociates UCU from his views and actions, and formally censures those who invited Masuku to the conference

• Stop the Boycott’s 2007 polling showed that the Union’s membership is largely moderate and neutral on the Middle East
• However, UCU Congress is always unrepresentatively hostile to Israel and has a record of supporting discriminatory policies

• If the motion “Palestinian Solidarity, BDS, and Histadrut” passes, UCU will be converting itself from a Trade Union into am organisation focused on promoting division and discrimination
• Sally Hunt holds the international portfolio on the Trades Union Congress’ General Council
• She cannot hold this position, which requires her to work closely with the Histadrut, while her Union is undermining these ties

Donate Here to support Stop the Boycott.

In its efforts to become a member of the OECD, Israel has reformed its economy in areas involving combating corruption or protecting intellectual property rights for example. The country will benefit from the transformative effects of OECD membership and the OECD will take advantage of Israel’s advanced scientific and technological policies.

The decision to accept Israel as a permanent member was unanimous, although anti-Israeli groups tried to prevent Israel’s entry to the organisation. These failed attempts are proof of Israel’s firm stand in the international community. They demonstrate that the Jewish state is appreciated for its achievements, despite violent criticism of its political decisions and security policy. Israel is succesfully integrating into more and more international forums, thus countering anti-Zionist efforts to undermine Israel in the international arena.

On March 31st UNISON, one of the UK’s largest trade unions, announced their support for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s effort to end the sale of Israeli settlement produce in Britain. On the face of it this is hardly a controversial position – the settlements established from 1967 onwards are widely considered illegal and a barrier to the peace process.

However, a closer look at the ideology and discourse of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign show that all is not as it seems. The PSC have an interesting article on their website entitled 62 Years of Nakba in which they state the following:

The United Nations had proposed a partition plan giving 55% of ancient Palestine for a Jewish state but the Zionists – who had targeted the whole of Palestine for the creation of a Jewish State long before the Nazi atrocities – took 78% of the land by terrorist tactics and military force.

The clear implication here is that it is not the land taken in the 1967 war by Israel that is occupied, but rather much of the land that Israel controlled after the 1948 War of Independence. Under this thinking, the cities such as Ashdod, Beersheva and Jaffa are considered occupied Palestinian land. Does the PSC consider produce from these areas as ‘settlement goods’ that should be boycotted?

The PSC’s ‘Settlements – The Fact’ briefing sheet again reiterates this position :

In 1947, the UN partitioned Palestine (whose population was 70% Palestinian Arab) and decreed that 55% of the land would be used to create Israel. In 1948, Zionist forces seized more land, razing about 500 Palestinian villages to the ground and driving 750,000 Palestinians abroad as refugees. More than 13,000 Palestinians were killed.

The PSC is deliberately blurring the line between the lands occupied in 1967, and the State of Israel as established in 1948. The TUC, UNISON, and other trade unions that sign up to the PSC campaign to boycott settlement goods should clearly distance themselves from any attempt to conflate the two. Failure to do so could result in a full scale boycott of Israeli goods, which would be a barrier to peace and significantly damage Israeli and Palestinian trade unionists and workers on the ground. Opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank should be accompanied by solidarity with grassroots activists in the Histadrut and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions. It is the workers on the ground that want to see a just and long lasting peace for Israel and Palestinian – and it is groups like the PSC that seek to undermine them at every turn.

£365,000 has been allocated to some really interesting projects, including:

• Research into Aramaic magical texts, a joint project of Southampton and Tel Aviv universities
• A project by Tel Aviv University and Imperial College looking at how the nose helps fight germs
• UCL and the Weizmann Institute’s work on understanding motor neuron diseases
• Research into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease by Ben Gurion and Leeds universities

…and many more – full list here.

In response, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

“I very much welcome the announcement of the grants for fifteen collaborative research projects involving Israeli and UK universities. The variety and diversity of these successful bids reflect the strong nature of the UK-Israel bilateral relationship. It was an honour for me launch the scheme in July 2008, together with the Israeli Prime Minister, and my government continues to support and actively encourage academic links between the UK and Israel.”

Our Twitter campaign to David Miliband and Downing Street generated nearly 200 messages calling for the UK to walk out when Ahmadinejad spoke. These included many messages from Iranian democracy campaigners.

Yesterday afternoon, David Miliband responded directly to the Twitter campaign. In response to Khoshkeledoc, an Iranian tweeter who had joined the campaign, Mr. Miliband tweeted:

“You’re right the issue is very serious. Walkout depends on what he says. Massive billboard cruising ny in protest.”

Once Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began to speak, it didn’t take long for his inevitable criticism of Israel to veer into classic antisemitic themes. When he said

“It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery, and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the US, to attain its racist ambitions”

then the British delegation walked out of the General Assembly chamber. Sweden, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, some South American countries and Israel also walked out or refused to go in at all.

A spokesman for the UK’s UN delegation explicitly said that their walkout was triggered by Ahmadinejad’s “antisemitic” rhetoric.

Well done to everyone who joined the Twitter campaign.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to stop Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN. But Governments don’t have to sit there and listen to him. They can walk out, as the UK Government and many others did when he spoke at Durban II.

So we’re arranging a quick Twitter campaign to call on the UK Government to walk out while Ahmadinejad speaks.

The message the Fair Play Campaign (@fairplaycg) tweeted is

“Ahmadinejad stole an election and denies the Holocaust. @DMiliband and @DowningStreet should walk out when he speaks at the UN. Please RT”

Obviously everyone should write their own message, but messages should include @DMiliband and @DowningStreet, so that they get seen by advisors to Gordon Brown and David Miliband. Also try to include some note in your tweet to encourage others to join the campaign.

If you’re already a twitter user, this will be the easiest campaign you ever joined. So what are you waiting for, write your tweet now!

Joint Statement from Jewish Leadership Council and Board of Deputies of British Jews

Response to TUC statements on the Middle East

Responding to today’s discussions on the Middle East at the Annual TUC conference, Jeremy Newmark, Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council and Jon Benjamin, Chief Executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews [both Fair Play Campaign board members], have issued the following statement:

“We are genuinely saddened that, in passing the FBU motion and adopting elements of the General Council statement, the TUC have damaged their ability to act as an honest broker building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians. The TUC has a noble record as a positive and unifying element in British life and in international relations.  This new policy will only create discord and divisiveness, masking a pro-boycott agenda behind the smokescreen of opposition to settlements.

The TUC has committed to supporting a two-state solution. They have asked unions to fund joint Histadrut/PGFTU projects. These constructive positions are totally incompatible with the decision to work closely with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, an organisation whose own logo wipes Israel off the map.

The Jewish community has many friends in the heart of the Trade Union movement, some of whom fought for a more balanced position. We are grateful to them. However, we made it clear to TUC leaders before their conference that a ‘deal’ which retained the language of boycotts would not address our concerns.

The fact that within moments of this statement was released conference delegates voted for a another extreme hardline pro-boycott motion proposed by the FBU is evidence that our concerns are well placed, and that TUC leaders must act against the harmful influence of the PSC within their unions. We insist that TUC leaders immediately clarify that this motion does not stand as TUC policy.

Israel’s strong, independent trade union movement works closely with the Palestinian trade unions to protect the rights of all workers.  It is particularly ironic that implementation of the TUC’s policy will harm the employment of many of those Palestinians.

Our communal leaders will respond robustly to this policy, which risks driving a wedge between British Jews and the Trade Union movement. Our response will be threefold:

• Firstly, we will be asking the TUC leadership to act swiftly and decisively to reassert their opposition to a boycott of Israel, and advise their member unions accordingly. We expect the General Council’s statement to be used as a licence to boycott by anti-Israel activists.

• Secondly, we will actively expose the discriminatory politics of the PSC, in order to frustrate their hijacking of Trade Unions to promote their anti-Israel and anti-peace agenda.

• Thirdly, we will be encouraging members of our own community to fight back, by getting involved in Trade Unions and speaking out.”

Despite the anti-boycott stance of many TUC leaders and most ordinary union members, it now looks possible that the pro-boycott camp may succeed in hijacking TUC Conference for their own divisive and discriminatory agenda.

In advance of tomorrow’s debate we hope that delegates and union leaders will reflect carefully and act to ensure that the TUC does not damage its ability to act as an honest broker building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians.

The TUC has a noble record as positive and unifying element in British life and in international relations. The boycott resolution will only create discord and division.

ENDS