Edinburgh Students Vote 62% for BDS

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The Edinburgh University Students’ Association passed a motion backing a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution against Israel.
The nonbinding motion passed Thursday by a vote of 249 to 153, with 22 abstentions, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported.
It calls on the university “to target products, companies and institutions that profit from or are implicated in, the violation of Palestinian rights, resist any action that gives political or economic support to violations of international law by the State of Israel and complicit companies and mandate sabbatical officers to work with the Black and Minority Ethnic liberation group, as well as Edinburgh University Students for Justice in Palestine to lobby and campaign for the university to also commit to BDS,” the newspaper reported, citing documents provided by the Edinburgh University Students’ Association.
The motion also called for an academic boycott of Israel.
Edinburgh University’s Israel Engagement Society described the motion as “irresponsible” and “intolerant,” according to the newspaper.
The student association’s policy will apply for three years, after which another vote must be taken.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
