Engageniks

Over at Engage:

AUT/NATFHE Merger and the prospects for a renewed boycott - Jon Pike
From next month the two British unions which represent teachers in higher education will be holding ballots of their members on proposals for a merger. The Association of University Teachers (AUT) represents members in the older pre'92 universities. The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) represents members in both new universities and in Further Education colleges.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sue Blackwell's "anti-Zionist" campaign against LabourStart - Jim Denham
In the poisonous miasma that envelopes the overlap between proper concern and anger over the plight of the Palestinians, and hysterical rage against all things Israeli, a new cry has gone out: "I feel another boycott coming on" says Sue Blackwell, one of the leading spokespersons of the (defeated) campaign to get the AUT to boycott Israeli academics for being Israeli.
The target of Ms Blackwell's boycotting zeal this time is the LabourStart website and email list, devoted to organising international trade union solidarity. Why Ms Blackwell, a trade union activist, wants to boycott LabourStart is an interesting question, and the answer tells you a lot about the sort of politics that she and her "anti-Zionist" co-thinkers represent. Read the rest of this entry »

Cindy Sheehan's Fraught Campaign - David Adler
Cindy Sheehan, the bereaved mother who lost her soldier son in Iraq, has garnered widespread media attention by camping out near President Bush's Texas ranch and insisting on a meeting. But why does she think that the Iraq war was fought for Israel? Read the rest of this entry »

Justifying and Legitimising Antisemitism - David Seymour
In Saturday's Guardian, Naomi Klein makes the claim that "our racism" is the "greatest recruitment tool" for what she terms "radical political Islam". Inherent to this argument is not only a restatement of the naïve anti-globalisation that passes for political thought -- the justification of an unbridled hatred of the USA -- but also a justification of "radical political Islam's" antisemitism (an increasingly staple of contemporary "critical" thought.). Read the rest of this entry »

John Strawson on conditions for academia in the occupied territories
Read what John Strawson has to say about Sharon's plans, conditions in the occupied territories and the situation of Palestinian academia here on the Workers' Liberty website.

Boycotting Israel: a reply to Jacqueline Rose - by Linda Grant
Linda Grant has written this piece on the Open Democracy website responding to Jaqueline Rose's call for a military economic cultural and academic boycott of Israel.
Professor Jacqueline Rose, who teaches literature at Queen Mary, University of London, is interviewed in Open Democracy about her recent book, The Question of Zion, an intellectual-historical exercise in marrying political theory to psychoanalysis. In passing she mentions that she supports a military, economic, academic and cultural boycott of Israel as an extension or adjunct to her theoretical work. Read the whole of Linda Grant's piece here.

Engage Needs Money
Engage needs money to help pay for:
* Admin help, to keep the website running
* Web fees, phone bills, travel costs
* Printing and meeting rooms
* The Engage conference in Sep 2006
Here's the plan. There is a website, PledgeBank. Have a look.

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