The NUJ is planning to boycott Israel again. So much for journalistic objectivity...
By Jake Wallis Simons Politics Last updated: January 28th, 2014
The NUJ is planning to table a motion to boycott Israel
Back in 2007, when the world was on the brink of economic collapse, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) voted to support a boycott of Israeli goods, as part of a protest against the 2006 Lebanon war.
The move, which was carried by 66 to 54, was a disaster. Not only were there concerns that it compromised journalistic objectivity, but also that it would be a distraction from the Union's "key workplace priorities".
Embarrassingly, within weeks the NUJ's national executive council had caved to this pressure. They effectively quashed the decision, voting unanimously that "no further action" would be taken to implement the boycott. In this they were following a decision by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to reject it.
Now, however, it appears that history is about to repeat itself. It is my understanding that at the NUJ's Delegate Meeting in April, a motion will be tabled calling for the following:
1. To encourage members to boycott Israeli products and back lecturers and other professionals who refuse to cooperate with Israeli institutions.
2. To write to the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] Movement declaring the union’s support for the campaign.
The bias of the proposed NUJ motion is clear. It explicitly states that, "just as the boycott Apartheid campaign finally helped to bring an end to racist injustice in South Africa, a similar campaign against Israel can help end bloodshed there".
As NUJ members pointed out last time, this is a long way from the impartial stance expected of journalists.
By any measure, the parallel between apartheid South Africa and Israel does not withstand objective scrutiny. Indeed, although it had close ties with South Africa in the first decades of its existence, the Jewish state became sharply critical of apartheid.
In the late 1980s, Israel aggressively curtailed its support for the South African regime, cutting many military, economic and cultural ties. It also ruled that only non-white South Africans would be allowed to study on certain courses in Israel, voted to condemn apartheid at the UN and took part in sanctions against South Africa.
And the briefest glance at modern Israel – where Arab citizens have seats in the Knesset, serve in the Israeli army and have even won television talent contests – reveals that while far from perfect, it is a long way from the racist regime of the BDS movement's imagination.
Moreover, by singling out Israel for boycott, the NUJ would be ignoring not only the countries who carry out actual human rights abuse – where are the calls to boycott Russia, or China, or Venezuela? – but the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has as much to do with Palestinian suicide bombs and Arab attacks as it does with Israeli settlements.
Last November, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, addressed the issue directly. "This government has no truck with those who seek to delegitimise or boycott Israel at all," he said. "We want to see an Israel… that is not constantly threatened with unjust boycotts or having to defend itself in international organisations."
In this he spoke for the majority of the British people. A recent poll conducted by YouGov for the Jewish Chronicle established that "fewer than one in five Brits believe that Israeli actors, dancers or musicians should not be welcome to perform here, and three-quarters can see no reason why British performers should not travel to Israel".
It is said that the definition of "insanity" is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. We have yet to hear the result of the NUJ boycott motion; but from where I'm standing, it looks like madness already.
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