New York, May 30, 2007… Conference of Presidents leaders condemned the British University and College Union resolutions passed today that support campaigns to boycott Israeli academic institutions and to provide unconditional financial aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.

Harold Tanner, Chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said, “These obscene resolutions have all the faults that academics normally deplore in their profession: a superficial and flawed understanding of the subject, clear bias, and antagonism to the open exchange of ideas.  Their call for unconditional financial support for the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, which continues to terrorize Israeli civilians and calls for Israel’s destruction, demonstrates that the sympathies of the majority of the union’s representatives lie with a terrorist group rather than the victims of terror.  They launch this baseless assault on a democracy with true academic freedom and support those who would deny this and other freedoms and rights.”

The UCU resolution calls for “the restoration of all international aid to the PA” without requiring any of the Quartet’s three conditions for international support: an end to violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of prior agreements.

“The resolution asserts that boycotting Israeli academic institutions is not anti-Semitic, but singling out, demonizing, and delegitimizing the Jewish state, as the resolution does, is by definition just that.  No amount of obfuscation will change that.”