Moti Cristal was supposed to present a master class called “the role of negotiation in dealing with conflict” at a conference sponsored by the UK’s national health service in Manchester. Members of the local trade union UNISON were also supposed to attend. the trade union objected to an Israeli participating in the conference for no other reason than his passport.
Regional secretary of UNISON Kevin Nelson said in a statement that the invitation to Cristal was “reversed” because “it was considered that the decision to invite a prominent Israeli negotiator would be unacceptable given UNISON and TUC policy on the Middle East conflict, the irrelevance of the speaker to working relationships within a local NHS Trust and the inappropriateness of funding an international speaker at times of such austerity, when front line staff in the trust are at risk of redundancy.”
What “policy on the Middle East conflict” could possibly justify banning an Israeli just because he’s Israeli?
Since the topic of the speech had nothing to do with politics, Israel or the “conflict” what possible justification could there be for banning an individual from the conference other than his passport? Which other nationalities do the unions in England discriminate against? Wanna bet it is only Israelis?