When it comes to Israel, you can always depend on moral relativism..as well as some pretty scummy sentiments in which Jew hatred is never far from the surface.
Yesterday, The Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Canada's largest union voted to boycott Israel. The Ontario group represents more than 200,000 workers.
The CUPE also condemned what they called Israel's "apartheid wall," saying it is illegal under international law.
"Boycott, divestment and sanction worked to end apartheid in South Africa," said Katherine Nastovski, chairwoman of the CUPE Ontario international solidarity committee.
"We believe the same strategy will work to enforce the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties."
Needless to say, Ms. Natovski had nothing to say about Palestinian terrorism, or any compensation and/or right of return for the almost one million Jewish refugees ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948. Or about the logic of comparing Israel, with its almost one million Arabs who have full citizenship and full rights under the law to South Africa...or for that matter, to the rights enjoyed by Arabs inthe Arab world.
This kind of disgusting moral delinquency is a real sight to behold.
The next day, across the pond, One of Britain’s biggest teachers’ unions votes to shun Israeli academic institutions that don't renounce 'apartheid policies.'Britain's National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) approved an academic boycott on Israeli higher education institutions that fail to denounce their own government. NAFTHEis one of the UK’s largest teachers' unions which with a membership of 67,000 educators, and they voted 106 to 71, with 21 abstentions, in favor of the boycott at their Blackpool convention.
This stunt follows a move by the Association of University Teachers (AUT), which advanced a motion in April of last year to shun Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities. hat move was subsequently rescinded under pressure. After Monday’s Blackpool convention, the two teachers’ organizations are expected to unite into one association.
At the Blackpool convention, two motions were passed: one to help aid, protect and support Palestinian institutions and universities i and to maintain ties with the Palestinian government to underscore this support. This motion also accuses Britain of `scandalous incitement' against Hamas.
The second motion called to renew last year’s boycott, and mentions “Israel’s persistent apartheid policy,” which includes the construction of the security fence.
This anti-semitic `boycott' was well planned, by the same people and with the same tactics used at the AUT boycott last year...including not allowing opponents of the measures to take the floor.
Israel's Vice Chairman of the Higher Education Council, Professor Yehezkiel Teler, said that this decision by a British lecturers' union to boycott Israeli academic institutions in Israel was reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
"Now Britain is politicizing academia, in opposition to every academic value accepted in the world. This will come back on them like a boomerang. They are isolating themselves and those who boycott will in the end by boycotted. It is a shame that England is leading this anti-democratic and anti-academic step."
According to Dr. Jon Pike, a philosophy professor at the Open University who was a key figure in overturning the April AUT boycott "There are a few people behind this, loosely organized..." he said. Comparing the resolution to previous attempts to exclude Israeli academics in Britain, Pike added: "Does that amount to anti-Semitism? I think it does, in effect, if not intent."
Writing in the website of Engage, an organization of Left-wing British academics who are spearheading an "anti-racist campaign against anti Semitism," Pike said "Let’s be stone cold clear about this: what the proposors of this resolution want is union endorsement for actions that are, in effect, anti-Semitic."
"It is clear, once again, that the proposers of the motion think it is appropriate to introduce a McCarthyism test," he said, adding that the motion was "inaccurate, dishonest, and in conflict with NATFHE's constitution."
"And it is clear that they want to endorse a private, covert, boycott," Pike warned.
Pike compared the motion to the actions of a Manchester-based academic, Egyptian born Mona Baker, who dismissed Israelis from her academic journal.
"They aim to endorse the actions of Mona Baker, who sacked members of the editorial board of her journal because they were affiliated to Israeli Universities. We know that Mona Baker's policy is, in effect, anti-Semitic: she doesn't want to have contact with any individuals who are affiliated with Israeli institutions, and those people will largely be Jews," Pike explained.
"The gutlessness is extraordinary. We know that the proposers of the resolution want a full-on official boycott of all Israeli institutions, and we know that they daren't subject their argument for this to democratic or legal scrutiny," he added.
Ronnie Fraser of the Academic Friends of Israel organization, said that the organizers of the current attempted boycott against Israel took care to avoid potential legal challenges.
"This year’s motion is worded in the form of a 'silent boycott' so that individuals will not be detected if they carry out a boycott nor they hope will the union be responsible for promoting a boycott," Fraser said.
"We are responding in the usual way, but it will be very difficult to overturn ..the majority are left-wing activists who do not believe that Israel has the right to exist, and that no criticism of Israel's policies can be anti-Semitic," Fraser said.
"Any boycott call that is based on whether Israeli academics support their government’s policy is, like the AUT call last year, discriminatory and effectively an anti-Semitic act," he added.
Acts like these are reminiscent of Britain's appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930's its closure of immigration to Palestine to Jews on the eve of the Holocaust, and the Oxford student union passing a resolution refusing `under any circumstances to fight for King and Country.'
Such actions are a black mark on Britain's name, and will be in the years to come.
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2 comments:
I have long thought that unions are very destructive to business and misleading to people. Academia has always suffered from a lefty bent. I didn't realize this was also true outside of the U.S. This is scary and infuriating, but probably irrelevant. And it WILL boomerang. The sooner the better.
Rosey, I come from a blue collar union home, and I respectfully disagree that unions are destructive to business.They can be, but at their best they provide a necessary leveling of the playing field, which is why big business supports unlimited illegal aliens...real wages in America overall have declined 16% since the `amnesty' of 1986.
And unions provide higher wages for workers, which benefits the economy as a whole. Henry Ford, a despicable human being in most regards understood this quite well when he paid his workers at Ford almost twice the going rate for factory labor `because I want them to be able to buy my cars.'
Higher wages and decent benefits also pay dividends in higher productivity and company loyalty, as I can pesonally attest.
THESE unions are NOT part of business, but are public employees paid at the taxpayer's trough. Different story.
There is also a lot of money being pumped into these campaigns world-wide by the Saudis, the UAE and others.
One of my correspondants in London wrote to me about her wry amusement at seeing militant feminists, communists, and gay activists demonstrating against Israel in Hyde Park right next to hard core Islamists.
None of these enlightened Leftists would want to confront human rights abuses in the Palestine Authority..including the organized targeted killing of homosexuals.
Jew hatred... the last socially hip and cool racism.
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