The Association of University Teachers (AUT) in the UK voted in its Council meeting today to boycott Haifa and Bar-Ilan Universities and to disseminate to all its chapters our Call for Boycott of Israeli academic institutions. This historic decision, which sets a landmark precedent, stands as a major achievement in the struggle to attain a just peace in our region. Finally, boycotting Israeli institutions, as a morally and politically sound response to Israel’s crimes, is on the mainstream agenda in the west; and no one can ignore it now.

Mr Koïchiro Matsuura,
Director-General of UNESCO
UNESCO
7, Place de Fontenoy
75352 PARIS 07 SP, France

2 March 2005

Dear Mr. Matsuura,

On behalf of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), we are writing to express our deep concern about UNESCO‘s recent support for establishing a joint Palestinian-Israeli scientific organization, which in our view marks a serious setback to the cause of just peace in Palestine.

We also call upon world governments to

impose sanctions against Israel to pressure it to comply with international law and the

pertinent UN Security Council resolutions.

It is no coincidence that a similar

advisory opinion by the ICJ, which in 1971 denounced South Africa’s occupation of

Namibia, triggered what became the world’s largest and most concerted campaign of

sanctions directed against the apartheid regime.

Israel Found Guilty by the ICJ over its Colonial Wall

This is the original call for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel issued in 2004