TULIP

In this case TULIP is not a flower, but a new international Trade Union organization, established to oppose Union actions against Israel, called Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (i.e. TULIP). The leaders of the new organization are Paul Howes, National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (USA), and Michael J. Leahy, OBE, General Secretary of Community (United Kingdom).
They have issued a founding statement which states: "It’s time for trade unionists in all countries to go on the offensive ourselves, to challenge the apologists for Hamas and Hizbollah in the labour movement.
We have no illusions that this will be anything other than a long and difficult process. But we also know that we have no choice. We cannot abandon the field to those whose goal is the destruction of any chance for a real Israeli-Palestinian peace..." To read the full statement go to: http://www.tuliponline.org/?p=48 or see the Jerusalem Post article, "New group to fight anti-Israel boycotts" at www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710805589&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
This represents a good, but unfortunately necessary, initiative against those left-wing Unions who claim that they are not anti-Israel, but end up being so as a result of their anti-war or pro-Palestinian sentiment. The net effect is that they single out Israel for criticism and for boycott resolutions. Since the direct boycott of Israeli academics and universities has been effectively blocked by legal threats, since it would violate British law on the grounds of discrimination, the Unions have now taken a different tack. They have introduced resolutions to ban any products, particularly produce, of the Israeli "settlements" on the West Bank, since they have decided that the West Bank is "Palestine." Although there is no legal or factual basis for this decision, it is their take on foreign policy, and they are persuading the British Government to do likewise. TULIP has been established to oppose these maneuvers.
On a related issue, if you want to understand the extent of the anti-Israel animus of some faculty at the University of California, consider the following: The Education Abroad Program (EAP) to Israel, after 7 years of having been suspended because of security concerns, is scheduled to reopen in fall 2009. This is a tremendous boon for many UC students, who have sorely missed the unique educational opportunities that a semester or year of study in Israel can afford them. However, a number of UC faculty have initiated a petition demanding that the decision to reopen the EAP program in Israel be rescinded because of Israel's alleged human rights violations.
It's important to point out that the University of California has EAP programs in 34 countries, several with human rights records considerably worse than Israel (eg. Egypt, China, Russia). Yet as far as I know, there has been no UC faculty-initiated campaign to close down the EAP programs to any other country. The UC faculty who have signed this petition have unfairly targeted Israel for opprobrium, but even worse, they have unfairly targeted the UC students who have waited 7 long years to avail themselves of this important educational opportunity.

Please consider sending an email to Michael Cowan, the Acting Executive Director of the UC EAP Program, and/or UC President Mark Yudof, expressing your support for EAP in Israel and your gratitude to the UC administration for having reinstated it: Michael Cowan - mcowan@eap.ucop.edu and Mark Yudof - President@ucop.edu

This material was adapted from an e-mail of Ronnie Fraser, Director of Academics for Israel at www.academics-for-israel.org