Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel is leading the fight against a boycott of Israeli academics institutions of higher education by the British University and College Union.

Wiesel recruited 51 Nobel Prize laureates from around the world to sign a petition condemning the boycott after he was tapped by a friend and colleague, Technion Chemistry Professor Aaron Ciechanover, also a Nobel Prize laureate.

The petition, which notes that “not only do such boycotts encourage the extremists, but they also praise and glorify prejudices,” also slams a boycott proposed two other British unions, the British National Union of Journalists and UNISON, the largest union in the British Trades Union Congress.