ADL condemns another union - this time in Canada

According to Ha'aretz, those great civil libertarians of the Anti-Defamation League are now on the case of another union for boycotting Israel.

The largest labor union in the Canadian province of Ontario has voted unanimously to boycott Israel "until it recognizes the Palestinians' right of self-determination" and accepts all United Nations resolutions relating to Palestinians, including the right of return.

The Anti-Defamation League has harshly condemned the decision, calling it "deplorable and offensive."

The decision was made by the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which has 450,000 members.

The union's decision says that it is joining an international campaign to boycott Israel and to impose sanctions on it, until it fulfills all UN resolutions including Resolution 194, which recognizes the right of return of Palestinian refugees from 1948. In addition, the union intends to support pro-Palestinian organizations in an educational campaign, which will depict Israel as an apartheid state.

It called on the national union to join it and to pass a similar resolution.

ADL Director General Abraham Foxman said that "the union's resolution makes no effort to reflect current realities on the ground in the region. There is no mention of Israel's unilateral redeployment from Gaza and proposed action in the West Bank, nor is there any recognition of the challenges posed by the terrorist group Hamas' reign over the Palestinian Authority and its refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist or to renounce terror."

The vote by the Ontario labor union to boycott Israel came hot on the heels of a similar decision by British lecturers' made earlier in the week.

The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, the largest union of university teachers in Britain adopted this week a resolution encouraging an academic boycott of Israel.

The decision by NATFHE, which has 69,000 members, enjoins members to consider boycotting Israeli academics and academic institutions that do not publicly take an explicit stand against the "apartheid policies" and discriminatory policy in the field of education.

The resolution, passed at NATFHE's annual conference, aroused controversy, and at the end of the debate 53 percent of conference delegates supported it, while 38 percent voted against and the rest abstained. The resolution passed despite an aggressive and extensive campaign waged by Israeli organizations and Jewish groups in Britain and the United States.

Members of the International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom, a body formed at Bar-Ilan University last year in the wake of an attempt to impose an academic boycott on Israel, said that "they will try to attack the resolution through legal channels." Last year, when a smaller British union, the Association of University Teachers (AUT), passed a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israel, it was canceled a month later by means of a procedural clause in the AUT regulations that was found by a British-Jewish academic.

Education Minister Yuli Tamir said that she will try to invite a group of senior academics from Britain to come to Israel "and prove that the boycott is on the fringes, and the mainstream actually views Israel as a partner."

The anti-zionist cause is on a roll now. Practicalities on the ground aren't changing just yet but the public dressing down being delivered to Israel these days is reason to be cheerful.