British Jihadi cheer team to vote again

British Lecturers will hold another vote Thursday on its decision to boycott Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities.

Britain's 40,000-member Association of University Teachers voted last month to boycott the academic institutions for actions that it said undermined Palestinian rights and academic freedom.

It also referred a motion to its executive committee to boycott the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The association said last week it would reconsider the boycott.

Meanwhile, Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh, who last week urged an end to the boycott, has been under attack by many Palestinians who have been calling for his dismissal from his job as president of Al-Quds University.

Several Palestinian political and academic groups issued statements strongly condemning Nusseibeh, accusing him of normalizing ties with Israel and acting against the interests of the Palestinian people.

Leaflets distributed in some areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip branded the widely respected Nusseibeh a "traitor" and "collaborator."

Nusseibeh, along with Menahem Magidor, president of Hebrew University, made the statement in a joint declaration in London at an international gathering of scholars debating human rights.

The two criticized the British boycott against the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University, describing it as "wrong and unjustified." They said "problems should be resolved through dialogue, not through sanctions."

"Our position is based upon the belief that it is through cooperation based on mutual respect, rather than boycotts or discrimination, that our common goals can be achieved," they said in their statement.

"Our disaffection with, and condemnation of, acts of academic boycotts is predicated on the principles of academic freedom, human rights and equality between nations and among individuals."

The Palestinian Union of University Teachers and Employees published a statement on the front page of the Palestinian Authority's daily Al-Ayyam in which it accused Nusseibeh of "normalizing relations with the Sharon government" despite the prime minister's policy of "bullying the Palestinians and stealing their land."

"This constitutes a strong blow to the Palestinian national consensus against normalization with Israel," the statement added.

"We call on all concerned parties within the Palestinian Authority, including President Mahmoud Abbas and the Higher Education Council, to take the necessary measures to put an end to this behavior, which doesn't represent the position of the Palestinian university teachers and employees, and dismiss the president of Al-Quds University."

In addition, a number of Palestinian teachers unions joined the call for the dismissal of Nusseibeh, accusing him of betraying the interests of the Palestinians and serving Israel's propaganda machine.

Awni al-Khatib, professor of chemistry at Hebron University, said in an interview with Al-Jazeera: "He [Nusseibeh] criticized the British union boycott of two Israeli universities, but didn't utter a word against the routine Israeli policy of closing Palestinian colleges and universities and of erecting roadblocks that prevent professors, employees and students from reaching Palestinian campuses."

However, Khatib stressed that Palestinian academics were not against scientific cooperation with their Israeli colleagues.

"What we are against is the manipulation by Israel of this cooperation to perpetuate inherently racist and discriminatory policies against our people."

Muhammad Abu Zaid, head of the Beir Zeit University Union of Teachers and Employees, appealed to the British union not to change its decision.

"The world must understand that there is no symmetry between the occupied and the occupier," he said. "When we achieve freedom and independence, we can then cooperate with the Israelis as free men and women, not as subjects and slaves with no civil, political or even human rights."

Nusseibeh, a former PLO representative in Jerusalem, was not available for comment. In the past he was criticized by many Palestinians for his role in the Geneva Initiative, which stipulated that Israel had the right to be an exclusively Jewish state. Nusseibeh was accused of giving up the right of return for Palestinian refugees.