Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME)’s UK chapter is now up and running, and is working with other organisations through the framework of the Fair Play Campaign Group.

In an article on the SPME website, Dr Howard Kahn and Prof. Ashley Grossman ask:

The fact that SPME-UK will now be working closely with FPCG will mean that we will be able to react quickly to any expressions of anti-Israeli, antisemitic and anti-Zionist behaviour. We will also be able to operate against calls for boycotts, including academic boycotts. SPME will be able to use its resources in the UK and internationally to help the activities of FPCG, while FPCG will be able to assist SPME in many of its endeavours.

But we need YOU to provide SPME-UK with as much involvement and support as possible if we are to meet the aims we have set ourselves – to inform, motivate, and encourage academics to use their skills and disciplines on campus, in classrooms and lecture theatres, and in academic publications, to develop effective responses to ideological distortions, including antisemitic, anti-Zionist, and anti-Muslim slanders, that poison debate and work against peace.

If you are an academic you can join their network.  To find out how, read the full article here.

Speaking at the Conservative Friends of Israel lunch, David Cameron said:

I think there’s something else we need to do which is to say to our academics in this country that boycotts of Israel are completely unacceptable and I think we also need to … say that to the trade unions. I have probably slightly less influence with the trade unions than you do but I’m working on it.

Mr Cameron went on to suggest that his party will help deliver this message to Trade Unions.

Last night, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg delivered the second annual lecture of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. In a good speech, he specifically condemned moves to boycott Israeli academics. He said:

“..we need to be much more active, more vocal, in our condemnation of antisemitism.

One issue where that is especially true is academic boycotts of Israeli academics. Totally unacceptable. Whether boycotters realise it or not these modern-day exclusions, based on nationality and tied to religion, carry enormous historical baggage. My party has made it clear we find them morally objectionable, and also counterproductive: the only route to peace will only ever be through dialogue.”

Dear Mr Wallis,

Thank you for clarifying the meaning of your remarks about lawyers backed by those with “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down”. We will be reproducing that part of your email that clarifies these remarks on our website, as promised.

We will not be reproducing your whole email, because some of the specific accusations you make against us in the rest of the message are simply untrue. It is unfortunate that you chose to forward these accusations to UCU’s General Secretary and UCL UCU Branch committee.

Similarly, we were upset to hear that a trade union meeting of 60 people debated a motion that claimed we were deliberately trying to “smear [your] name”. This is a serious and false charge made by the original author of the motion.

We have considered your comments:

In our original article, we claim you made remarks linking anti-boycott legal action to untraceable Lehman Brother accounts. We note that you accept making these remarks in your response.

We also state that it was not entirely clear what you meant by those remarks. You have now explained that you were referring to “wealthy individuals” who would no longer have the wherewithal to take action against UCU.

As someone who was present for the BRICUP fringe event, I do not find this explanation particularly convincing, especially as you were speaking specifically at that point about the threats the Union faced from legal action. Obviously, I have no way of knowing what you were thinking when you spoke, but we are comfortable with our original claim – that it was not, at the time, entirely obvious what you meant.

These are the only assertions about you in our report. We stand by our original report and are not inclined to withdraw it. We do not accept your claim that a failure to remove a true and accurate report would indicate complicity in a smear campaign.
Yours sincerely,

Arieh Kovler
Fair Play Campaign Group

In response to our request for clarification, Sean Wallis sent us a longer message. He explains his remarks in the excerpt below.

Your report suggests anti-semitic intent on my part in referring to the words “Lehmann Brothers”. I categorically deny this intent.

But this is simply not a plausible neutral interpretation of my remarks.

As you are aware, one of the biggest political events last year, and an issue that is occupying most of our minds as trade unionists was/is the “credit crunch”. In the case of the USA the collapse of the Lehmann Brothers loomed large in all reporting.

An unbiased observer would have clearly understood that my comments were made precisely in the context of the abilities of wealthy individuals having the means to pursue UCU for damages in the courts, and that any democrat worth the name should come to the aid of those who wished to see an unfettered debate in the union.