Bowing to pressure from the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) anti-Israel group, students at the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), one of Britain’s top universities, voted in a referendum to support the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The proposal passed with a 73 % majority.
Organizers of the referendum said that 2,056 total votes were cast in the school-wide referendum, which was proposed by the Students' Union on advice from the BDS movement as part of the Israel Apartheid Week. The vote was open not only to students but also to faculty, nonacademic employees, university governors and outsourced workers, such as cleaning and security staff.
SOAS has ties with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Since the anti-Israel resolution was introduced, situation became strained and at times intimidating for the Jewish and pro-Israel students.
The school director, Paul Webley, said he would investigate and take appropriate action as soon as possible. SOAS’s mission demands “an atmosphere of open inquiry, mutual tolerance and intellectual freedom. We will not tolerate behavior or activities that might compromise this,” he said. “I urge any student who has experienced intimidation or abuse to register a formal complaint so that we can set an investigation in motion and offer appropriate support and mitigation as soon as possible,” he added.
SOAS Jewish Society President Moselle Paz Solis described the vote as “divisive” and “discriminatory” and warned it would lead to a deterioration of relations between Israeli and Jewish students and other groups.
A spokesman for the Fair Play Campaign, a group that was established by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council to coordinate activity against boycotts of Israel and other anti-Zionist campaigns denounced the , was a biased process run by a Students’ Union that had already decided it would boycott Israel no matter what the result.
“SOAS should be proud of its connection to a fine academic institution like Hebrew University and the opportunities this has afforded many SOAS students to enrich their understanding of the Middle East through study in Israel. We look now to the management of SOAS to guarantee that students of Hebrew at SOAS will still have the opportunity to study at Hebrew University as a part of their courses,” the spokesman told The Jerusalem Post.