Protests as Israeli ambassador interferes to censor free speech


October 17, 2017
Sarah Benton

Censorship battle and an antisemitic charge cause anger

Dr David Alderson and 42 others want the University of Manchester to apologise to the students whose campaign it has maligned, and to the censored speaker whom it has defamed. Meanwhile Prof Avi Shlaim and six other signatories object to Moshe Machover’s expulsion from the Labour party

The University of Manchester should ‘make clear that it defends the principles of free speech’, say Dr David Alderson and his fellow signatories. 

Letters, The Guardian
October 15, 2017

We write to express our deep concern at the actions of senior figures within the University of Manchester in relation to an event organised by the student Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign earlier this year (UK university censors Holocaust survivor’s speech criticising Israel, theguardian.com, 29 September). While the event went ahead, the speech of a Jewish Holocaust survivor was arrogantly censored and labelled antisemitic, the right to superintend the meeting by university academic staff was usurped by institutional appointees, restrictions were placed on advertising the event, and the whole thing was filmed in what amounted to an implicit threat of potential further action.

As if such serious infringements of the right to freedom of speech on campus were not bad enough, it is now revealed by a student freedom of information request that the university’s actions were taken after representations from, and in deference to, the very regime whose lamentable human rights record was being condemned at the event. We are appalled that the university appeared to take instruction from Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, who, in his former capacity as spokesperson to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, justified to the world successive military assaults on Gaza that resulted in the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children in attacks on hospitals, homes and places of work using both high-precision weaponry and imprecise and indiscriminate materiel, including white phosphorous bombs.

We ask the university to apologise to the students whose campaign it has maligned, and to the censored speaker, Marika Sherwood, whom it has defamed. It should further make clear that it defends the principles of free speech and assembly against attempts to inhibit them by foreign states and other powerful external parties.

Dr David Alderson
Professor Mona Baker (Emerita)
Dr Lauren Banko
Dr Mark Brown
Professor Erica Burman
Professor Bridget Byrne
Alessandro Columbu
Professor Aneez Esmail
Emma Clarke

Professor Jeanette Edwards
Dr Douglas Field
Professor Hal Gladfelder
Dr Bethan Harries
Dr Jenny Hughes
Andrew Howes
Professor Tim Jacoby
Dr Stef Jansen
Dr Steven Jones
Dr Paul Kelemen (Honorary research fellow)
Dr Barbara Lebrun

Peter McMylor
Professor Rayaz A Malik
Professor David Matthews
Dr Vanessa May
Dr Dalia Mostafa
Dr Adel Nasser
Dr Richie Nimmo
Dr Michelle Obeid
Professor Luis Perez-Gonzalez
Dr Eithne Quinn

Dr Madeleine Reeves
Professor Dee Reynolds
Dr Myriam Salama-Carr
Dr Michael Sanders
Professor Ludi Simpson
Professor Zahia Smail Salhi
Dr Graham Smith
Dr Robert Spencer
Professor Jackie Stacey
David Swanson
Dr Petra Tjitske Kalshoven
Dr Nicholas Thoburn
Professor Julian Williams



A young Moshe Machover with friend and comrade Jabra Nicola (R), an anti-Stalinist member of the Palestine Communist party.

Letter

For George Monbiot, Labour could herald a new political movement, addressing the environmental challenge and inequality by “threatening established power in Britain”, creating space for a new politics (The Labour party could lead worldwide economic change, 11 October). We hope so. That is why we are members of the party. Not all members share this ambition. Some, it seems, would go to almost any lengths to thwart it.The latest such move is the exclusion of Professor Moshe Machover, an academic and Israeli socialist, long resident in the UK. His offence? Two infringements: his insistence that anti-Zionism and support for Palestinian rights are not antisemitic; and his willingness to write articles about this in any leftwing publication. For this, he has been expelled from the party.

Misusing the term antisemitism for pro-Israel political purposes deprives it of its charge

In this strange linguistic wonderland, it is antisemitic to argue that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic.The charge of antisemitism against Machover is personally offensive and politically dangerous. Misusing the term antisemitism for pro-Israel political purposes deprives it of its charge and its critical role in naming those who hate Jews because they are Jews. Real antisemitism is obscured by this self-serving redefinition of the term.

Expelling Machover because another organisation published his work is absurd. This could just as well be used against Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. Perhaps they are next in line.We are among 139 Labour party members, Jewish and non-Jewish, from many constituency organisations, who have written to our leadership demanding Professor Machover’s reinstatement, and an inquiry into how this has occurred.

Prof Avi Shlaim
Sir Geoffrey Bindman
Brian Eno
Ken Loach
Prof Haim Bresheeth
Prof Jonathan Rosenhead
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

 

© Copyright JFJFP 2024