Alamgir

British union calls for boycott of Israeli goods
By Alan Cowell

LONDON: Britain's biggest journalists' union, The National Union of Journalists, has criticized Israel's "military adventures" and voted narrowly in favor of a boycott of Israeli goods. The vote followed calls by some British academics last year to ostracize their Israeli counterparts.

At the journalists' union's annual delegates meeting last Friday, a vote calling for "a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid in South Africa" was approved by 66 to 54. They also urged British and United Nations sanctions on Israel.

The union has around 40,000 members, represented at the annual meeting by roughly 150 delegates from its 60-plus branches.

The ballot did not, however, make the same calls for a boycott of contacts with Israeli journalists as previous academic efforts to ostracize Israeli university teachers.

"This was opposed by the leadership and approved by the membership," said Jeremy Dear, the union's general secretary.

The boycott call was initially part of a broader condemnation of Israel's so-called "slaughter of civilians" in Gaza and "savage pre-planned attack" last year on Lebanon but was separated for a specific vote. The condemnation of Israeli military action in Gaza and Lebanon was approved by a wider margin.

In the debate leading to the vote, there had been some opposing delegates arguing that a boycott call would not help British journalists do their job in Israel, and others arguing that it was not the job of a journalists' union to get so involved in such issues.

The timing of the ballot was particularly delicate since a BBC journalist, Alan Johnston, has been held for more than a month in Gaza, making the boycott call seem one-sided. A Palestinian group claimed on Sunday to have killed Johnston but the BBC said it treating the report as a rumor.

"We had a whole separate section of the conference" devoted to Johnston's plight, Dear said. According to the Union's Web site (www.nuj.org.uk), the delegates voted unanimously to "keep up the urgent global campaign for Alan's release" and criticized Palestinian authorities for failing "to carry out their promises to do all they can to free Alan."

Dear said there had been "some feedback," primarily from unidentified e-mail correspondents in the United States, saying he "should be put in a concentration camp" or tried for hate crimes.

He said those who supported the boycott call had argued that, while the union represented journalists, it still had a "duty to uphold those things in that are in our constitution" concerning human rights.

On the union's conference blog, however, a critic of the ballot, identified as Olivia Lang, said "it is not going to make life easier for journalists anywhere in the world" to be seen to be taking sides. "We need to strive to maintain our objectivity when reporting," she wrote.

The ballot, however, stirred little immediate comment in Britain.

Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for The Guardian and The Evening Standard, who said he is a member of the National Union of Journalists, took issue in a telephone interview with the union's decision, saying it made no distinction between Israel itself and Israeli settlements in occupied territories. "This punishes Israel proper along with settlers as if the two were the same," he said.

Moreover, he said, "as a tactic it strikes a raw nerve in the Jewish psyche."

"You won't win over the Jewish diaspora" with such boycott calls, he said.

Last year, the largest British university teachers' association voted to encourage individual academics in Britain to sever professional contact with their counterparts in Israel.

The call echoed an appeal one year earlier by a smaller association, which first demanded a boycott of two Israeli universities and then withdrew the call under pressure from some of its members. The two associations later merged and the policy lapsed, said Trevor Phillips, a spokesman for the combined association. It will be discussed again next month, he said.

British union calls for boycott of Israeli goods - International Herald Tribune

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Dreadnought

Really sucks when warfare doesnt go the way journalists want it huh?

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Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

Stan187

Lol, the Palestinians kidnap journalists and they want to boycott Israeli goods for it, what a bunch if morons

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In Iran people belive pepsi stands for pay each penny save israel. -urmomma158
The Russian Navy is still a threat, but only to those unlucky enough to be Russian sailors.-highsea

Aranthus

Cowards definitely, and fools. They probably thought that they could buy his release, or make it safer for their people to work in the area. Won't happen.

glyn

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Semper in excretum. Solum profunda variat.

gunnut

I'm beginning to side with the Palestinians on this particular action now. Maybe we should encourage them to kidnap more western journalists.

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

Ray

I wonder what "Israeli adventure" that has been spoken about.

Except for the last action which too wasn't a war, every other action was a Arab initiative. OK, the Arabs lost and always lose. It is because the Arab Armies don't know how to fight. But how can that be held against the Israelis?

Yes, the Israelis sometimes overdo it. But then, if every day your existence is under threat and questioned, then one does develop the psychology of being on a short fuse! Gaza and Palestine are examples of what a short fuse can do.

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"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Parihaka

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In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

JBG

It seems that the National Union of Journalists needs to change it's name. It is a bunch of, at best, opinion writers now that it has so dramatically abandoned objectivity.

Maybe the Isrealis should tell them to piss off - they can report from other parts of the ME and enjoy the freedoms etc of those places!!

Jonathan

Stan187

I like your sentiment Jonathan!

lazybastard

hmmm... *adds objective journalism to list of oxymorons.

Woodsy the Lar

A case of the blind leading the blind.That the Israelies have oppressed the Palastinians for decades is no secret however they have recently given them autonomy in 2 areas and will look at these as can we have peace with our neighbours has shown

1 it takes time

2 influence from Iran,Syria and Saudia Arabia telling the Palastinians stay on the War Path.

3 Political will to defend the actions of the military from the Israel goverment

4 The only way for peace is when both sides relent from force and sit at a peace table and discuss the future of the region without interferance from outside.