LONDON (PIC)– UNISON the public service workers’ union in the UK has voted Wednesday by a majority of roughly 4-1 to support the campaign to boycott Israel.
“Conference believes that ending the occupation demands concerted and sustained pressure upon Israel including an economic cultural academic and sporting boycott.”
Motion 53 which the conference voted on calls for amongst other things Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders allowing Palestinian refugees to return home removing Israeli settlements taking the Apartheid Wall down and respecting the Palestinian people’s right to national self-determination and to the establishment of a state in the West bank and the Gaza Strip with its capital in Jerusalem.
The conference also condemned the economic sanctions imposed upon the Occupied Palestinian Territories following Palestinian Parliamentary Elections of 25 January 2006 which make worse the appalling economic circumstances of the occupation. It is a unique example of economic sanctions imposed not upon an occupier but upon a population struggling against illegal military occupation.
The motion also called for the United Kingdom government to end the arms trade with Israel and a mandatory United Nations Arms Embargo on Israel of the kind the Security Council imposed on South Africa in 1977.
The vote was welcomed by UK organisations that support Palestinian people’s rights.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said in a press statement that it welcomed the vote and the call for lifting the sanctions; ” However given the events of this week PSC is deeply concerned that the sanctions are now being lifted to support one Palestinian faction against another only to serve Israel’s and the West’s interests. This will have the result of further undermining Palestinian democracy and increasing poverty and hardship in Gaza.”
The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BCPU) for its part welcomed ” the decision of UNISON at its Annual Conference to put its support behind the growing campaign of economic cultural academic and sporting boycott of Israel” in a press release issued on Wednesday.
University and College Union voted last month to promote a debate among its members on the question of adopting an institutional boycott of Israeli universities.
