Britain – The Boycott of Israeli Universities was Lifted

On 26^th May 2005, the large Association of Lecturers held a special meeting in London during which the decision to boycott Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities in Israel was put to revote. With a 75% majority, the boycott was lifted. The heads of the Universities in Israel had led a struggle to lift the boycott with the assistance from the British Jewish community, members of Parliament and 21 Nobel Prize Laureates. The heads of the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Education in Britain publicly expressed their reservations about the boycott. In front of the building where the voting was being held, some 100 Jewish students demonstrated opposite several dozen Palestinian and Muslim demonstrators.

Even though the Association of Lecturers had decided to lift the boycott, another major, more radical, organization the National Association of Teachers for Higher Education (NATFHE) was considering whether to support a similar academic boycott.