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Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom

^^^^ - By effecting tarring all Israeli academics with the same brush, regardless of their political and moral views, this boycott treats them as one lumpen mass. It's ridiculous to suggest (as this boycott does) that, because lecturers are employed by the state, they must agree with the state. By that reasoning, all UK lecturers must agree with the UK government's position in Iraq.

I can't help but suspect a least a tinge of anti-Semitism too - the boycott giving a message of "We won't deal with Jews, no matter who they are". Now I'm sure people will disagree on this specific point - this is simply my subjective view.

Finally, shouldn't the union be doing things like, you know, representing it's members interests in the UK, instead of pissing around with motions that make self-righteous smug gits feel so much better about themselves?

if it's like you say, yes, it's really a stupid move on the part of this union. about antisemitism i don't know, but arabs are semitic people as well-- just to clarify--. so you mean jew haters? strange people like that still exist. and it only fuels the siege mentality of israel, i'm afraid.

now about the activitis of unions, yes-- i once dropped out of a budding union because some brilliant idealist had the genius to use the union as a platform to start condemning u.s. foreign policy in iraq (before the war) as well as other fuzzy uncertain causes nobody could agree on, rather than focusing on issues of employment, fair wages, etc.

some people however see this as a "universal struggle for justice" and go on to pursue all kinds of causes because they feel to be on the right in every case. my feeling is that this undermines the original cause they are supposed to embrace.

but then again there is this standing criticism that since the fall of communism (sue me porky for using this term that's how it's known, "communism") or maybe even since earlier, the western left has splintered into a myriad of issue groups and it lacks any great overarching ideology, which weakens it... then again maybe this is an offshoot of postmodernism & lack of faith in big narratives... but yeah there are always people who prefer to fight large unwinnable fuzzy battles rather than pick away at small tactical winnable fronts. a matter of strategy i suppose. in this case it seems to me the strategy is flawed.