The British Ambassador to Israel, Tom Phillips, spoke at Bar Ilan University a few days ago. He said:

My Government is very clear on this issue: we are utterly opposed to any type of boycott of Israel. Boycotts are counterproductive, particularly in this region where we should be encouraging as much dialogue as possible.

He also highlighted some of the strenghtening links between Israeli and British academics, students and throughout education.

The full speech appears below:

Continue reading ‘British Ambassador condemns boycotts and praises academic links’ »

JHRC will be fighting racism at the UN Durban Review Conference that begins on this Monday, the 20th of April, in Geneva.

The original World Conference Against Racism, in 2001 Durban, was hijacked by Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist groups who led a well organised campaign , backed by Muslim and Arab governments, to exclude antisemitism from the conference agenda and to label Israel as an apartheid state and to revisit the “Zionism = Racism” equation. The conference itself was marked by harassment of Jewish delegates and antisemitic flyers praising Hitler. The USA and Israel walked out in disgust.

Early drafts of the Durban Review declaration contained text that downplayed antisemitism, demonised Israel and Zionism as uniquely racist, and claimed that “defamation of religion” was a form of racism. These lines have been removed from the latest version of the text, but could still be reinserted at a later stage.

Worryingly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced he will attend the Conference. At his last speech at on a UN platform, he said that

“a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists … have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centres as well as the political decision-making centres of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner”

Given Ahmadinejad record of making antisemitic speeches at UN events, there is serious concern about the impact of his presence and actions.

The UK Jewish community delegation to the Durban Review Conference will be led by the co-chairs of the Jewish Human Rights Coalition (JHRC-UK), Rosalind Preston OBE and Henry Grunwald QC. The delegation will be attending to lobby governments, running a side event in the Conference venue on fighting racism, and working to ensure that the Conference is true to its principles.

JHRC-UK will be live-blogging on developments at the Durban Review Conference at its website www.jhrc.org.uk

You can also follow @JhrcUK on Twitter for real-time coverage of the Conference plenary.

This piece was originally posted to the Jewish Human Rights Coalition website

On the 31st of March, the Government will be hosting a meeting with major UK supermarkets to present them with new voluntary guidelines on the labelling of goods from West Bank settlements. These will probably ask supermarkets to explicitly label goods from West Bank settlements.

OXFAM, which is calling for these goods to be totally banned, has also been invited to join the meeting.

Goods from Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara and other territories which the British government considers occupied do not have explicit labelling guidance; for example, goods from Northern Cyprus are labelled ‘produce of Turkey’.

Speaking for the Fair Play Campaign Group, Jeremy Newmark, Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said:

“This step risks encouraging those working for a wider programme of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. No meetings have taken place at this level to discuss produce from other territories that the British Government considers occupied. By involving groups which campaign for a boycott and a ban on all settlement goods, the Government is making it harder to believe that this meeting is purely about giving consumers choice.  These plans also risk harming the incomes of over twenty thousand Palestinian workers whose earn their livelihoods in the production of such goods.”

Jon Pike, UCU Executive Committee member and founder of Engage,  reports on Friday’s meeting:

Towards the end of a long day, there was an important discussion and decision about the union’s international policy. It’s complicated…

Read Jon’s full report for an explanation of what happened. Briefly though, in the course of the meeting, the committee refused to endorse a statement by a subcommittee which falsely claimed the Union had begun a process that could end in a boycott of some Israeli universities.

Last year, the Executive Committee itself submitted a boycott motion to UCU Congress. This year, the Executive is refusing to endorse pro-boycott pronouncements from other committees.

Additionally Sue Blackwell, who proposed the 2005 AUT boycott, has lost her seat on the Executive Committee at the latest elections. This is another sign of the weakening grip of the boycotters on UCU’s structures.

Welcome to the website of the Fair Play Campaign Group.

Click here to sign up to our mailing list