British Government Tries to Dershowitz Southampton University
Members of the British government are trying to dershowitz* Southampton University:
Eric Pickles has warned Southampton University against “allowing a one-sided diatribe” as the become [sic] the most senior politician yet to intervene in the growing row over a major conference into the legitimacy of Israel.
The Communities Secretary’s comments come as a senior Jewish leader called for the event, hosted by the institution’s law school, to be reconstructed or cancelled.
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“Given the taxpayer-funded University has a legal duty to uphold freedom of speech, I would hope that they are taking steps to give a platform to all sides of the debate, rather than allowing a one-sided diatribe.”
Board of Deputies vice-president Jonathan Arkush will head a delegation to meet the university’s vice-chancellor Don Nutbeam next week.
“The Board’s central insistence will be that if this conference cannot be re-structured to revise its tendentious subject title and focus on delegitimising The State of Israel, and to feature a balanced line up of academic contributors, it cannot be treated as a serious and genuine academic study and should be cancelled,” he said.
“Thus far, all it is achieving is the inflicting of serious damage to the reputation of the University of Southampton as a British university of repute.”
Pro-Israel speakers including Professor Alan Johnson have been added to the conference’s schedule but research by the Fair Play Campaign Group classified 80 percent of the 56 speakers as “anti-Israel activists”.
*dersh·o·witz
verb
- demand that a speaker(s) with one view of the State of Israel share the platform with a speaker(s) of the opposing view, unless the first speaker supports the State of Israel.
- demand that a speaker(s) with one view of the State of Israel share the platform with a speaker(s) of the opposing view, unless the first speaker is Alan Dershowitz.