Israel to hit back over boycott?

Last Modified: 11 Jun 2007
By: Channel 4 News

Israel is threatening retaliation in response to a threat by British academics to boycott Israeli universities.

The government has distanced itself from a decision by the huge University and College Union to consider a boycott of Israeli universities in protest at Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The public services union Unison votes on a similar motion later this month. But some grassroots union members are deeply unhappy about the boycott - as are some of the world's most respected academics.

And now Israel is threatening retaliation in the form of a boycott on British goods and services - starting with a west end musical.

Channel 4 News was joined by Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, famous for defending OJ Simpson and now involved in mobilising opposition to the proposed boycott, and by Tom Hickey, the Brighton University philosophy lecturer who proposed the motion.

Boycotts: a short history

The boycott gets its name from Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, an English land agent in Ireland. In 1880 a group of his tenants - who became the Irish Land League - protested against Boycott's eviction policies by refusing to deal with him.
In December 1921 Mahatma Gandhi promoted the swadeshi policy where British goods, educational institutions and courts of law were boycotted. He encouraged Indians to resign from government and to give up any titles or honours bestowed by the British empire.
In 1955 the civil rights movement began the Montgomery bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott was in protest against racial segregation on public transport. It lasted a year until the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama laws requiring segregated buses unconstitutional.
South Africa's brutal suppression of the Soweto uprising in 1976 prompted the United Nations to vote for a mandatory arms embargo against the country.
In the summer of 1977 Nestlé was boycotted in the United States due to the company's marketing of breast milk formula to less economically developed countries. The campaign, which claimed the product contributed to infant mortality amongst the poor, soon spread to Europe.