BRICUP Newsletter 124 September 2018
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BRICUP Newsletter 124 September 2018 www.bricup.org.uk [email protected] CONTENTS P 9. Canary Mission - If you are racist then the world should know” P 1. Chris Burns Cox- An Appreciation Editor Derek Summerfield and Monica Wusteman (BRICUP) with David Halpin FRCS P 10. News from other campaigns P 2. Acts of Solidarity and BDS for AURDIP, BACBI and USACBI Palestine in 2018. P11. Sign the commitment by UK The BDS Movement scholars to human rights in Palestine P 3. Damage may occur P 11. NOTICES Report on the Sixth Palestinian Conference on Modern Trends in Mathematics and Physics P 5. Leicester City Council compliance with public sector equality duty- a legal Chris Burns Cox- An Appreciation commentary Derek Summerfield and Monica Wusteman Robert Wintemute, (BRICUP) with David Halpin FRCS P 6. Birzeit University condemns breach of academic freedom after academics Members of BRICUP were very sad to hear of the forced to leave Palestine recent death of one of its most dedicated and longstanding members- Chris Burns Cox. Statement from Birzeit University Chris, a retired physician from Gloucestershire, P7. The ethics of study abroad in Israel made crucial contributions to the work of News from the US BRICUP over many years, working mainly with P 7. A book on Israel’s deliberate Derek Summerfield and Ghada Karmi on maiming of Palestinians wins top exposing the complicity of Israeli doctors in the academic prize torture of Palestinian prisoners. With them, he made a number of contributions on this subject to P 8. Open letter from trade unionists on our newsletter. Below is personal appreciation of the adoption of the IHRA definition Chris from Derek Summerfield and David Halpin, two of his former colleagues from the campaign P 9. Speakers withdraw from an to expose the complicity of the members of the academic workshop at Ariel University Israeli medical profession in torture Editor 1 Chris's lovely smile would disappear in an instant BDS for Palestine in 2018, demonstrating when he learned of yet another atrocity committed growing recognition of Israel’s crimes and against Palestinians by Israelis. His outrage was Palestinian rights across political and educational turned towards visiting sisters and brothers in and cultural life. Palestine, and most often in Gaza. On one such Since then, two more artists have recognized the mission, the small team of doctors of which he desperate plight of the Palestinian people at the was part, was held at Rafah for several weeks as hands of the Israeli state by cancelling Egypt conspired with Israel to inflict on the appearances in Israel. The American singer- people of Gaza even greater isolation. songwriter Lana del Rey had initially refused to If caring is the greatest human virtue, then change her plans, despite calls to do so from the Christopher had it in his marrow. He cared so Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and much for so many things. Firstly for justice for Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and other the Palestinian people and secondly for the NHS. activists. But , following further calls via a He also gave assistance with a small group in the shared petition from Jewish Voice for Peace and plea for an inquest on Dr David Kelly, an inquest PACBI, which gathered 14,5000 signatures , plus which uniquely this unnatural death never had. over 5000 tweets, she announced the cancellation He served on the committee of what is now , issuing the following statement on Twitter “It’s 'Doctors for the NHS.' At a local level, he often important to me to perform in both Palestine and set up small human associations in his field of Israel and treat all my fans equally. … therefore, diabetes. Once they were afloat, he cast off. I’m postponing my appearance at the Meteor Nurses at his funeral who had worked with Chris Festival.” spoke warmly of this. After he had donated a This announcement was shortly followed by kidney to a stranger, he took up the cause of news that the electronic musician Henry Laufer, altruistic kidney donation. better known by his stage name Shlohmo, had This gentle man had the courage of his canceled his performance at another Israeli music convictions. His unfaltering concern for Israel over ‘human rights atrocities' . He Palestinian rights goes back at least to the 1990s. apologized to fans and festival staff in his More recently he has been a core activist in the announcement, saying that "supporting the campaign, running since 2009, to bring to public oppressed thru [sic] my absence is more attention the substantial and unequivocal important to me especially after the government’s evidence of what Amnesty has long called “the recent human rights atrocities. I had said no to institutionalised complicity” of Israeli doctors playing there for years and the only reason I serving in interrogation centres with the torture of could find to say yes was if I were to donate my Palestinian adults and children, shielded by the fee to Gaza relief,but after much dialogue I found Israeli Medical Association. Central to this have it to be a more important statement to say no all- been evidence-based appeals to the World together [sic] than to donate. I hope you can Medical Association and the UN Special understand this decision.” While aware that Rapporteur on Torture. Chris tried hard to secure “there is a huge population of Israelis who the involvement of the BMA, as a WMA member. protest the state policies + support Palestinians,” He was always about practical action. He he found that “the more I dwell on the issue the confronted Sir Michael Marmot who, when WMA more I can’t justify going. I urge others to President, failed to stand up to Israel despite the research the issue.” evidence, challenging him to explain why he did not do so. We shall miss Chris' example of wholehearted commitment to the struggle. Acts of Solidarity and BDS for Palestine in 2018. The BDS Movement Last month, the BDS Movement published a short-list of 70 examples of acts of solidarity and 2 Damage may occur Electrical items, including laptops, may be taken from departing passengers for security inspection A report from a BRICUP supporter on his … damage may occur.” It continued: “Israeli participation in the Sixth Palestinin Conference security officials have on occasion requested on Modern Trends in Mathematics and Physics access to travellers’ personal e-mail accounts or at the Kadoorie Technical University in the West other social media accounts as a condition of Bank. entry.” This was beginning to sound less like a pleasant One of the few perks of being a British academic interlude combining business and pleasure in a is that every now and then you get invited to an friendly country, and more like a clandestine overseas conference. The organisers of the more foray into China by a recruiter for Falun Gong. I prestigious events always seem to choose well decided to terminate my Facebook account, that known tourism destinations for the venue, and record of every off the cuff remark and unguarded even the more routine meetings are enlivened by comment that I had committed to the internet over dinners, side trips and entertainments. But these the past ten years; permanently deleting this was are not quite the boondoggles they may appear. something I had intended to do since the The formal programme of talks and seminars is Cambridge Analytica scandal but had never quite like a scaffolding on which these apparently got around to. I also removed all but two essential random happenings are draped; they provide a contacts from my mobile, and deleted most of my setting in which the real work is done, which emails (an overdue chore anyway). My mind involves making friends, forming alliances, ringing with stories from well-meaning friends renewing acquaintances, making promises of who had worked in the West Bank, of “cavity future cooperation and getting up to date with searches” by Israeli security (which, it turns out, academic gossip. This is a standard and accepted have nothing to do with dentistry), I prepared bonding ritual. It is what creates an international myself mentally for a bout of ritual humiliation. community in one’s chosen field of study. Actuality, as so often when one prepares Sometimes, however, these engaging thoroughly for the worst, was an anti-climax. On arrangements take place under less relaxed arrival, I informed a bored-looking immigration circumstances. When I was invited to give a talk official that I was in Israel to attend “a conference to the Sixth Palestinian Conference for Modern on mathematics”. Looking if possible even less Trends in Mathematics and Physics in the West interested, she asked me how long the conference Bank, Tripadvisor was not much help in planning would last and when I would be flying out. my journey. It seemed that the standard route was Having noted this information, she provided me to fly to Tel Aviv and take a road trip from there. with the standard three month permit and I was But consulting the Foreign Office website, which through. provides useful guidance for the traveller to less The conference hosts, Kadoorie Technical well-trodden parts of the world, I found that University in Tulkarim, had assured me by email certain difficulties might be encountered. On that I would be met at the airport and conveyed to landing at Ben Gurion Airport, it warned: “An the venue, where I would be fed and housed for investigation into the misuse of UK passports in the duration. These promises were generously the murder of Mahmud al-Mabhuh in Dubai in fulfilled in every respect.