Planners for Palestine

Here's a Ynet (Yediot Ahranot) article on a petition by the UK's Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine.

In an interview with the Guardian published Saturday, a spokesperson for the group said the "complicity" of Israeli architects was "clearly unethical, immoral and contravene(s) universally recognized professional codes of conduct."

"We ask the Israeli Association of United Architects (IAUA) to meet their professional obligations to declare their opposition to this inhuman occupation," he said.

Architect Will Alsop told Building Design magazine that he and his colleagues felt compelled to act. "This is not against Israel, it's for Palestine," he said. "I think the Palestinians are living in a prison. I'd like fellow colleagues in Israel to feel some responsibility about this shabby treatment. Architects are a fairly humanitarian lot and perhaps they could help."

The petition was harshly received by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Its chief executive Jon Benjamin said: "What they are saying is that they have a certain view and that Israeli architects must publicly declare that to be their position as well."

Benjamin added that it would be more beneficial to "encourage the two sides to work together".

The architects' lobby is the latest in a series of petitions by British academics that have come out against Israel with severity, and even launched a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

Nice to see the Board of Deputies lecturing on what would be "more beneficial" for the Palestinians. Or am I misreading this? Do they mean that it would be "more beneficial" for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel if everyone left well alone and stopped declaring their support for the oppressed and their detestation of zionism and its works. And what's the Board of Deputies' beef anyway? Their full title is the Board of Deputies of British Jews. What do they care if people protest against racist rule in a far of place?