Welcome to TheAcademic Friends of Israel

The Academic Friends of Israel has been campaigning against the academic boycott of Israel since 2002. We are concerned about the increasing number of anti-Israel and anti–Semitic incidents on British Campuses as well as the anti-Israel policies of the UK’s education unions.

Our members may or may not support the policies of the Government of the State of Israel but are all agreed that Israel has the right to live in peace within secure borders. We are opposed to the “new” anti-Semitism, which is aimed at Israel, which often hides behind legitimate criticism of Israel.

The AFI Digest and latest news

 

No 5 - 24 June 2010

The view from Britain: Unions agree to boycott the Histadrut

No 4 - 22 April 2010

The view from Britain:Unions to discuss boycotting the Histadrut 

No 3 - 22 March 2010

The view from Britain: Hate war on campus to be "stamped out"

No 2 - 18 February 2010

The view from Britain: Plenty of anti-Zionism on Campus

 No 1 - 16 February 2010

Anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic emails posted on UCU activists list

 

Essays by Ronnie Fraser

Trade Union and Other Boycotts of Israel in Great Britain

 
  • The United Kingdom more than any other country in the world has embraced the Palestinian call for academic, trade union, media, medical, architectural, and cultural boycotts of Israel. The driving force for this campaign is Britain's trade union movement and its anti-Zionist activists on the far Left, such as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
 
  • The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) actively works for a general boycott of Israeli goods as well as a cultural and sports boycott of Israel and has forged links with the far Left and the unions to publicize their cause. All the major UK trade unions are affiliated with the PSC and several of them actively promote PSC policies and literature.................
To read the essay click here

 

The Academic Boycott of Israel: A Review of the Five-Year UK Campaign to Defeat It

 
To read the essay click here

 

The Academic Boycott of Israel: Why Britain?

This essay has been has been updated and published by The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in the book; Academics against Israel and the Jews edited by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld [ISBN 978-965-218-057-5, 276 pp.] 

To read the essay click here

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Do you want to know more about collaborative projects Israel Universities have with Palestinians and others? Let us introduce you to Israeli Academia

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 The New Antisemitism 

“What we are witnessing today is the second great mutation of anti Semitism in modern times, from racial anti-Semitism to religious anti-Zionism with the added premise that all Jews are Zionists. It uses all the medieval myths… The mutation is this; that the worst crimes of anti-Semites in the past-racism, ethnic cleansing, attempted genocide, crimes against humanity-are now attributed to the Jews and the state of Israel” - The Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Sir Jonathan Sacks

“Under the “new” anti-Semitism, prejudices, blood libels and double standards once leveled at the individual Jew are addressed to the personification of collective Jewry, the State of Israel. If we check whether Israel is being demonised or deligitimised, or whether a double standard is being applied to it – we will always be able to see anti-Semitism clearly.” - Natan Sharansky

Read our page on antisemitism here