A seasoned observer of the British trade union scene put it to me in stark terms. “You’d be hard put,” he said, “to find a union in the UK that isn’t sympathetic to the boycott of Israel.”

His observation was made in a conversation which took place a few days before the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) voted, at its conference, to back the boycott of Israel. That vote, on July 4th, brings the number of British unions supporting the boycott campaign to four: journalists, academics, public and voluntary service workers and now the union representing those working in an array of industries from transportation to food.

The TGWU’s debate reproduced the same themes which emerged at the other union conferences. Firstly, the portrayal of Israel as country forged in colonial sin and therefore solely responsible for all the conflicts in the area, including the recent bout of intra-Palestinian bloodletting in the Gaza Strip. Secondly, the indignant protest that a boycott of Israel can never be, by any stretch of the imagination, antisemitic.

continue reading "Laboring the Boycott"

It’s tempting to view the movement to boycott Israel as a peculiarly British affliction. The University and College Union vote marked the third time in three years that British academics have opted for a boycott policy. And that decision came barely a month after the British National Union of Journalists (NUJ) voted, at its annual conference, for a boycott of Israeli goods.

The UCU boycott dents the prestige of British academia just as the NUJ boycott tars the British media. But none of that matters to the boycott activists.

They believe if they demonstrate concrete results by pushing Israelis off conference platforms and out of the pages of academic journals, other sectors with similar clout will follow. In that regard, they can point to the boycott calls issued by groups of British doctors and British architects, all of whom accuse their Israeli counterparts of, as the UCU would say, “complicity” in the supposed crimes committed by Israel.

continue reading "Britain is Not the Only Battleground"

Back in 2003, when I was still living in London and working as a journalist, I came across a newspaper advertisement slamming Israel which had been signed by a number of British trade unionists. Among them was Jeremy Dear, the Secretary-General of the union I belonged to, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

Like many other members, I had no meaningful involvement with the union. The only tangible benefit of membership was a press card which you could whip out, should the need arise, to demonstrate your bona fides to a policeman or a government official. But when I saw Dear appending the name of the NUJ to this ad, I decided I’d had enough. Why, I fulminated, should I pay membership dues to a union that had embraced the demonization campaign against Israel? Why should I, even in a small way, subsidize the salary of a man who, in addressing a rally opposing the Iraq war, declared that an invasion of Israel would be the morally correct alternative?

continue reading "Confronting the NUJ’s Israel Boycott"

With the first round of the French presidential elections approaching on Sunday, we in France are watching, for the first time, the emergence of a new generation of political leaders in their 50’s, two of whom are running for the first time in a presidential race.

This is the most keenly contested presidential election in France for a generation. It is also, arguably, the most crucial, with implications not just for France, but also for the future of Europe, transatlantic relations and the international community.

continue reading "AJC Briefing - French Presidential Elections"

This is the good news: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has emerged as one of the strongest advocates of Israeli security of any European head of state in recent years.

After Germany assumed leadership of the European Union and the Group of Eight in January, Chancellor Merkel revived the Mideast Quartet (the U.S., the EU, Russia and the UN) to bring movement into the nearly defunct Mideast peace process. In early April, on her second visit to the Mideast in two months, Chancellor Merkel warned Iran to stop threatening Israel, made abundantly clear her abhorrence for terrorism, and refused to meet with Palestinian officials who are members or supporters of Hamas.

This is the worrisome news: A Global Scan poll commissioned by the BBC in March 2007, determined that 77 percent of Germans believe that Israel has a negative impact on world affairs. In fact, only 10 percent of Germans believe Israel has a positive impact, scantly more than the new European Union member countries Poland and Hungary.

continue reading "Germany and Israel: Friendship and Criticism"