Odious Comparisons — Nov 2002

Officials
declined to spell out exactly
what the Government might do
to put pressure on Umist.
However, the university, which
received £36.9 million in
public funds last
year. . . —The
Daily Telegraph, London,
campaigning for the firing of
an academic critic of
Israel

More fine, unbiassed reporting from Britain’s premier daily newspaper . .
.

London, Sunday, 17 November 2002

Blair vows to end dons’ boycott of Israeli scholars

By Francis Elliott and Catherine Milner

[maniac] TONY
Blair has told Britain’s Chief Rabbi that he will “do anything necessary” to stop the academic boycott of Israeli scholars at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (Umist).

The Prime Minister told Jonathan
Sacks during a private meeting in
Downing Street that he was “appalled” by evidence of discrimination on British university campuses, according to his aides.

His comments — his first on the issue
— follow worldwide protests sparked by a
British academic’s sacking of two Israeli scholars from her highly respected international journals.

The dismissal by Mona Baker, a professor at Umist, of Dr Miriam
Shlesinger and Prof Gideon
Toury because of their nationality initially raised no public opposition from within British universities. But when
The Telegraph revealed her actions it led to a fierce debate in this country and abroad about attitudes to Israel in British academia. An inquiry by Umist into her actions has been in progress since then.

When Rabbi Sacks raised the case, Mr Blair said its findings had to “send a clear signal” that so-called academic boycotts will not be tolerated. Umist launched its inquiry into
Prof Baker’s actions in July.

A spokesman
for the university this week insisted
that the investigation was nearing
completion. Mr Blair’s intervention
will increase pressure on the
university to remove the academic from
her post.

“The Prime Minister is appalled by discrimination against academics on the grounds of their race or nationality. He believes that universities must send a clear signal that this will not be tolerated,” said a Downing Street aide.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister confirmed that he had met Rabbi Sacks in
Number 10 on October 28 and that the issue had been raised. Mr Blair is said to have told the Chief Rabbi that he took the matter “very seriously indeed”. A senior
Labour Party figure said that the Prime
Minister had also offered to “do anything necessary” to stop academic boycotts.

Officials declined to spell out exactly what the Government might do to put pressure on Umist. However, the university, which received £36.9
million in public funds last year, will be acutely aware of the approaching review of higher education funding, due to be published in January. It will also need official approval for plans to merge with the University of Manchester to create
Britain’s first super-university. The timing of Mr Blair’s intervention
[sic.

The Chief
Rabbi’s intervention] is therefore clearly designed to exert maximum leverage over the institution which initially refused to take action over the affair.

Umist at first claimed that because the journals from which Prof Baker had dismissed the scholars — The
Translator and Translation Studies
Abstracts — did not belong to the university it could not act. Prof Baker justified her action by saying: “I deplore the Israeli state. Miriam knew that was how I felt and that they would have to go because of the current situation.”

Umist was forced to back down, however, after protests by academics from around the world and Estelle Morris, the then education secretary, who said that such discrimination was “completely unacceptable”. A spokesman for the university said last week: “There have been reports that the case has been dropped but that is not true.

The committee will return its verdict about whether Mona Baker will be able to remain in her post — or not — before
Christmas.”
[sic. before
Hanukah?]

Mr Blair’s intervention will also be taken as an implicit criticism of Oxford
University. The university last week refused to make public the results of its internal investigation into allegations that Tom Paulin, a poet and academic, told an Egyptian newspaper that
American-born Israeli settlers should be shot dead.

Mr Paulin, who lectures in English at
Hertford College, remains in his post.
Harvard University
[sic. Lawrence H
Summers, the Jewish president of
Harvard] this week cancelled a lecture by him because the invitation had caused “divisiveness and consternation” in the prestigious American institution.

[accused of buggery]Lord
Janner, of the Holocaust
Educational Trust (right), welcomed Mr Blair’s intervention and said that it would be “very well received”. He added: “Academics should ask themselves who is next to be boycotted.”

About 700 academics worldwide have signalled their support for an academic boycott of Israel. In Britain, the calls for action have been led by Steven
Rose, an Open University professor.

Calls for such a boycott have been supported by NATFHE, the lecturers’ union, while demands for a moratorium on the
European funding of Israeli institutions have been backed by the Association of
University Teachers.

©
Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited
2002.
Professor’s
anti-Israeli tirade revives sacked
academics row
Government
warns Texas Business against Boycott of
Israel
UK
Scholars Debate Boycott of
Israel
Hadassah
Is Boycotting All Boycotts
Department
of what goes around, comes around:
Israeli fury at anti-Israel boycott: British
Journals Oust 2 Israeli Scholars From
Their Boards
Harvard
President Sees Rise in

Anti-Semitism on
Campus
German
press reports teacher jailed for
expressing doubts in private letter to
a Jewish historian: latter turned it
over to state political police
A
glitch in the Matrix — CNN’s skewed
reporting on the Middle East
Who
owns and

controls the Polish press
today? Is it any different from the
situation in the rest of the
world?
The
former New York Times editor writes on
the alleged Jewish Bias of the
newspaper
Jeff
Jacoby in Boston Globe: A wave of Jew
bashing in Europe follows Ariel
Sharon’s “self-defense” invasion of
Palestine

href=”https://fpp.co.uk/BoD/origins/MSNBC_List.html&#8221 target=”_blank”>MSNBC
publishes astonishing list of US
journalists who back Israel without
qualification
Israeli
medical association (Dec 2001): OK to
break fingers of Palestinian prisoners
during interrogation
Stern
Gang: The Rich History of Jewish
Terrorism”
Jan
29, 2002:

Nottingham University cancels
David Irving’s address to Forum: 300
messages of support flood in to
students who invited him |
Mr
Irving’s regret (Radical’s Diary) |
previously: Outraged
opponents of free speech threatened
violence | Nottingham
students stood firm on invitation |
Outraged
Jewish Chronicle editorial |
Mr
Irving’s Radical’s Diary