Academic boycott of Israeli universities ?

I came across this article regarding the Academic boycott of Israeli universities in the UK. The article states it's likely to be overturned but what caused it in the first place? It all started with Sue Blackwell, an academic at the University of Birmingham. She called for the cut to academic links with the universities of Bar-Ilan and Haifa. The article continues to explain :

David Hirsh, a lecturer at Goldsmiths College and one of the co-ordinators of the campaign to overturn the boycott, said Israel was being "unfairly demonised".

He said: "The logic of their position is that Israel is an illegitimate state and that Jewish nationalism is unlike that of any other nationalism. I think that is essentially an anti-Semitic position and there is a risk of Jews working and studying at British universities being unfairly painted as racist if they do not describe themselves as anti-Zionists."