"We are urging people to reflect on whether it is appropriate for them to maintain their links with Israeli institutions"

"It is one step short of urging people to consider a boycott." He said UCU members needed to discuss the situation in the Middle East in more detail before any moves toward carrying out a full boycott could begin.

The intention is for members to reflect on "the apparent complicity" of most Israeli academics in the "humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel", according to the motion.

It says union members should "be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions".

The motion states that "criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, anti-Semitic".

But it notes the "continuation of illegal settlement, killing of civilians and the impossibility of civil life, including education" as a result of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

It criticises previous attempts to stop UCU members debating a "boycott of Israeli academic institutions".

After last year's vote, Jewish leaders condemned the union for its "frightening" assault on academic freedom.

Steven Weinberg, a physicist who won a Nobel prize, cancelled a planned visit to Britain in protest at the boycott calls.

Ron Prosor, Israeli ambassador to the UK, said: "Any call to an academic boycott on Israel is an act of folly since boycott stands as a contradiction of what academy symbolizes and represents.

Those who call for this boycott are not interested in anything but the vilification of Israel, ignoring even the efforts of both Israelis and Palestinians to achieve peace.

"They abuse the system which allows them to promote their destructive agenda."

"It's about time for all of us to speak up loudly and clearly against this marginal yet vocal group which represents the antithesis of academic cooperation".

The Stop the Boycott campaign, which is backed by the Jewish Leadership Council, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and other groups, has condemned the latest UCU motion as "shameful" and "utterly irresponsible".

Jeremy Newmark, co-chair of the Stop the Boycott campaign said: "Trade Unions exist to defend their members in the workplace, not to discriminate against them."

Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the UCU, emphasised that "freedom of thought and the freedom to learn are rights that are at the heart of democratic civil society".

"Our international obligation is to provide meaningful solidarity wherever we can," she said.

This could be to teachers in Colombia, lecturers in Zimbabwe "or students and staff in Palestine unable to get through checkpoints in order to continue study".

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