Delegates at a Canadian Union of Public Employees conference in Windsor, Ont., have voted in favour of a resolution to boycott Israeli universities to protest against Israel's recently ended offensive in Gaza.

When such a boycott was proposed earlier this year, CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan angered many by saying universities in the province should bar Israeli professors who refuse to condemn Israel's three-week military campaign, which ended Jan. 18.

Ryan later said the union was not calling for a boycott of individual Israeli academics, saying the resolution instead took aim at what CUPE referred to as "academic institutions and the institutional connections that exist between universities here and those in Israel."

The union leader said he was pushing for action because Palestinian schools were among Israel's targets. He also compared the Dec. 29 attack on the Islamic University in Gaza to Nazis targeting educational institutions during the Second World War.

He later apologized for the remarks, saying he used "a poor choice of analogy."

Members of the Jewish Defence League called the boycott proposal and Ryan's remarks anti-Semitic.