Jewish Chronicle on the boycott and 1967

The boycott Israel motion passed by the University and Colleges Union makes the front page of the Jewish Chronicle this week. Not being a subscriber this was all I could grab from the website:

Colleges back a boycott
01/06/2007
By Bernard Josephs, Bournemouth

Israel accused of ethnic cleansing, ‘barbaric colonisation’ and apartheid Despite pleas from their own leadership, and a concerted campaign by pro-Israel supporters and academics, members of the newly merged Universities and Colleges Union voted this week to move towards a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The vote, by 158 to 99, with 17 ....

There are also two almost full pages (4 and 5) on boycott issues.

Ironically, it's the 1967 war that gets the most coverage in this week's JC what with this month being the fortieth anniversary. Ironical because if Israel had confined itself to its pre-1967 boundaries there might not be this boycott movement emerging just now. It's still not an anti-zionist boycott though of course many of the activists who have promoted the boycott are anti-zionists.

Out of the 1967 war coverage the most interesting I think is Jeremy Bowen's piece. He strikes an interesting balance between the perceptions of ordinary people at the time such as overconfident Egyptians and worried Jews and Israelis on the one hand and on the other, the in know, justly confident Israeli leaders together with Arab leaders whose "blood-curdling threats" belied their own anxiety and weakness.