BRICUP Newsletter 122 June 2018 www.bricup.org.uk [email protected] CONTENTS P 9. Displaying pro-Palestine posters at P 2. Antisemitism accusations and the Leeds Trinity University – an update. defence of Jeremy Corbyn James Dickins At the UCU Congress 2018 Fringe Meeting, Tom Hickey P 9. BDS NEWS Tiago Rodrigues joins the Cultural Boycott of P 4. Academic freedom in the era of Israel Trump Gilberto Gil concert in Tev Aviv cancelled Shakira cancels her concert in Israel By Sunaina Maira Argentina's World Cup warm-up match with Israel cancelled P 5. Wolf prize for science- letter to Professor Omar Yaghi P 12. NEWS FROM OTHER CAMPAIGNS BRICUP members USACBI calls for a boycott on study abroad in Israel The guilty indulgence of the Collège de P 6. European Court of human rights to France with regard to Israel - AURDIP review criminal convictions of boycott French boycott activists P 14. Israel funnels millions to erase Robert Wintemute Palestinian history A report from the Alternative Information Centre. P 7. News from the UK Palestine Mental Health Network (ukpalmhn) P 15. Sign the commitment by UK Statements from Psychoactive- a group of scholars to human rights in Palestine Israeli Mental Health professionals- on Gaza and the proposed IARPP conference in Tel Aviv P 15. NOTICES P 8. Israel boycott is not hate crime- Scottish Government-Commissioned Report 1 Antisemitism accusations and the Public Affairs Director of BICOM (the Britain- Defence of Jeremy Corbyn Israel Communications and Research Centre). She resigned her role as PPS to the Shadow Northern UCU Congress 2018 Fringe Meeting, Manchester Ireland Secretary in protest at Corbyn’s May 30th leadership. Tom Hickey Labour Antisemitism Crisis? At lunchtime on Wednesday 30th May, on the In his contribution, Professor Rosenhead argued first day of the UCU Congress 2018, a successful that there is indeed an antisemitism crisis in the fringe meeting was held to discuss the recent Labour Party but in a different sense than its attacks on Jeremy Corby as well as on numbers of proponents assert. It is not a crisis of rampant, activists over alleged antisemitism in the Labour malignant racism, a hatred of Jews as Jews that Party. The meeting had been called to explain the repeats the blood libel, international conspiracy background to a motion (Motion 32) related to theories, and Holocaust denial. It is rather a crisis this topic which was due to be discussed at in which allegations of antisemitism have created Congress. UCU is the national trade union for a climate in which Labour Party members are lecturers and academic-related staff in Further and uncertain what criticisms of Israel might get them Higher Education. suspended or expelled. With standing room only, delegates heard brief The experience of Labour Party members round speeches from Professor Jonathan Rosenhead the country is that antisemitic sentiments at LP (speaking on behalf of Jewish Voice for Labour), meetings are virtually unknown. Antisemitic the anti-racism activist Marc Wadsworth comments on social media, some claiming to be (speaking on behalf of Grassroots Black Left), from supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, are a reality – and Tom Hickey (speaking on behalf of Bricup). but the origin and authorship of this material, Professor Rosenhead has recently been attacked much of it anonymous, is inherently uncertain. in the Jewish Chronicle for alleged antisemitism because of his contextualisation of the remarks of What is known, from direct experience as well as Ken Livingstone; and Tom Hickey has long been from surveys, is that antisemitism is less of a considered antisemitic by some sections of the problem today than it was in the 1950s or 1930s Zionist movement because of his advocacy of an or 1890s, and its incidence remains far higher on academic boycott of Israeli institutions as policy the Right of politics than on the Left. Even a for the UCU. But it is Marc Wadsworth, however, claim such as this, that antisemitism is not a major who has been targeted for excommunication. The problem in the Labour Party, is one that the three speakers exemplified, in different ways, the enemies of Jeremy Corbyn want to make into issue that the meeting addressed. evidence of antisemitism. Antisemitism denial, it seems, is itself antisemitic. The aggressive attacks Expulsion on Jewish Voice for Labour by opponents of Wadsworth, an anti-racist campaigner and Corbyn and by friends of Israel, Rosenhead founder of the Anti-Racist Alliance, has been a argued, were because this new organisation prominent figure in a series of campaigns, not threatens the narrative that all Jews are united least as joint founder of the campaign for justice behind the antisemitism moral panic. for the murdered teenager, Stephen Lawrence. Wadsworth Sacrificed Marc was expelled from the Labour Party on 27th April for breaches of Labour Party rule 2.1.8 Marc Wadsworth recounted the events that led to (‘behaviour prejudicial to the Party’). his suspension, and ultimately to his expulsion from the Party. He explained what he had seen in the exchanges between the Labour MP and a The accusation arose from his public criticism of senior reporter from the Daily Telegraph. He the MP, Ruth Smeeth, at and after the launch of categorically denied that there was anything the Chakrabarti Report. Smeeth had accused antisemitic in his accusation of collusion between Wadsworth of an antisemitic attack on her by them in opposing Jeremy Corbyn, and that he had what she chose to interpret as an allegation that not the faintest idea that Ruth Smeeth was Jewish. she was engaged in a conspiracy with the media He had fought all forms of racism throughout his and against the leadership. Ruth Smeeth was adult life, including fighting antisemitism. The elected to Parliament in 2015, is a member of accusation against him is thus a poisonous libel, Labour Friends of Israel, and was Campaigns and 2 and one that he would continue to fight until it there were any antisemites in the Labour Party, was withdrawn. Moshe Machover replied, “Are there any zebras Equally, Wadsworth argued, his expulsion from in Norway?” Thus had he taken the measure of the Labour Party on these grounds is not the problem. There are some zoos in Norway, and something that he could possibly accept. Not only some will doubtless house some zebras, but this is it a calumny, and an assault on his personal and doesn’t render Norway’s climate as tropical. political integrity, it hangs as a threat against The Fate of Motion 32 every member of the Labour Party who has With such a successful meeting mobilising and legitimate criticisms of Israel. His campaign for motivating perhaps 20-25% of the delegates, there reinstatement and the clearing of his name and was every chance that the motion on Jeremy reputation is a political and a legal campaign. He Corbyn, and on allegations of Labour Party appealed for financial support to keep it going. antisemitism, would be won in the afternoon Coincidences of interests debate, and that the wrecking amendment that had Tom Hickey argued that the orchestrated been submitted by the majority faction (the Independent Broad Left) on the National campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and the current Labour Party leadership was not over. It would be Executive Committee would be lost. That was not kept simmering during the summer, he predicted, to be, however. and its temperature would be raised again in the It was not that the amendment was passed, or that autumn. the motion was lost. They were never debated. On Hickey argued that there was a coincidence of the agenda also were two motions critical of the interests that united the Blairite right-wing of the UCU General Secretary for her handling of the Labour Party, Tory activists, and the friends of, USS pensions dispute – one was a censure and apologists for, Israel. For their different motion, the other a motion of ‘no confidence’. reasons, all shared the objective of preventing the Rather than face that criticism, the General current Labour Party winning office, and thus Secretary appealed to her trade union for support, keeping Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing and members UCU’s staff who are members of Street. For many of Corbyn’s opponents in the the Unite union walked out, paralysing the Parliamentary Labour Party, it would be better for Congress, and bringing its business to a halt Labour to lose the next election than to have a (including Motion 32). See below for the wording socialist who is critical of Israel in the Prime of the motion that was never debated. Minister’s residence. Electoral defeat would It was a hallucinatory experience. Delegates enable them to reclaim the Party from the radicals proceeded to vote by a large majority that the and from the newly recruited members. Congress should be reconvened as soon as The determination and desperation of the Right in possible, and that all properly submitted motions the Party is exemplified by the expulsion of Marc must be debated in line with the democratic Wadsworth, a man of unimpeachable anti-racist procedures of the UCU. So, the antisemitism credentials. Yet it also showed a vacillation on the motion will return (as will the motions of Left, and in the leadership. There had clearly been criticism directed at the General Secretary). a mistaken belief that concessions to Zionist Appendix: text of Motion 32 critics on the question of antisemitism would Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the Defence of appease them, whereas the opposite has proved to Jeremy Corbyn be the case, and there would be no compromise from the anti-Corbyn MPs who feared Conference notes: deselection.