In recent years, several British university unions voted in favor of an academic boycott of Israel. The measures drew much criticism, including from Columbia University president Lee Bollinger, who called on one union to “add Columbia to its boycott list,” and from a number of Nobel laureates.
In a blog post last week, CiF Watch, an independent affiliate of CAMERA, imagined what would happen if those unions used a consistent standard instead of singling out the Jewish state:
In a move widely expected to spark considerable controversy, one of the UK’s leading university unions, the National Union of Teachers, Trainers and Education Research Staff (known cheekily by some rebels within the union as ‘NUTTERS’) will announce a proposal that Britain’s university teachers and researchers take the unusual step of boycotting themselves.
A spokesperson for the union told CiF Watch the following:
“We realise this may seem drastic, but the gravity of the crimes being committed in the name of UK universities leaves us no choice. We have reliable information that several UK universities have collaboration programmes with educational facilities in such anti-democratic, misogynistic and apartheid states such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. We also know of several other British institutions which have received substantial donations from such puppet organisations as the Qatari Foundation and the King Faisal Institute. The LSE alone received around £4 million from the Gaddafi Foundation, half of which in return for a dodgy PhD award to Saïf Gaddafi, currently under investigation for war crimes. We demand the LSE return the money to the Libyan people, sack all its staff and close itself down for its role in crimes against humanity. To cap it all, we know of no single leading UK academic who has denounced Britain’s role in NATO’s atrocities against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, who are asking simply to be left to practice their religion unmolested.
The “interviewer” also asked what this self-boycott meant for the union’s anti-Israel boycott:
Oh, we’re still boycotting Israelis. It’s just that it doesn’t seem to have much effect – they still keep on inventing cool technology and life saving medical devices, and winning international prizes and stuff.
Read the whole thing here.