Middle East Update

Debbie AndaloResearch councils in the UK said Thursday May 31 they would still allow collaboration on projects with Israeli institutions despite the decision by the university lecturers’ union to back calls for an academic boycott. Research Councils UK, the umbrella organization for the seven councils, which between them hold the purse strings for £2.8b [...]

James Meikle
Delegates at the first conference of the new University and College Union in Bournemouth voted by 158 to 99 ON Wednesday May 30, for “a comprehensive and consistent boycott” of all Israeli academic institutions.

Britain has become in recent years the battlefield in Israel’s fight for its existence as a Jewish state. The number of British organizations calling for the boycott of Israel, their public campaigns, and their constant comparisons between Israel and the apartheid regime of South Africa have made the battle for British public opinion particularly significant.

On March 22, an Iranian naval patrol seized 15 British marines and sailors who had boarded a vessel suspected of smuggling cars off the coast of Iraq, military officials said.

Israel should pursue a strategy of “open nuclear deterrence” towards Iran if international attempts to halt Teheran’s nuclear ambitions fail, a London think tank argued in a report released Monday.

Here are elements of the Government of Iran, openly supporting terrorism in Iraq… trying to turn out a democratic government in Lebanon, flouting the international community’s desire for peace in Palestine - at the same time as denying the Holocaust and trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability. We have to wake up.

British Prime Minister Tony [...]

British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged world leaders on Wednesday December 20, to be bolder in supporting leading moderates against “forces of extremism” in Iran and elsewhere and in advancing Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Bush and Blair give Washington press conference on Iraq report
Media sources reported that just one day after the special US study group submitted their report recommending President George W Bush’s administration become more involved in an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, the US Congress has passed a bill forbidding the administration from meeting with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. [...]

The chief of the British Army has called for a pullout of British troops from Iraq “sometime soon” and said that post-invasion planning for that war was “poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning.”

During his final speech as Labor leader to his party, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “From now until I leave office, I will dedicate myself the same commitment I’ve given to Northern Ireland, to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine.”