Some are more welcome than others

Last month I wrote that the Stop the War Coalition had invited Ibrahim Moussawi, chief foreign news editor for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV station, to speak at its rather misnamed (considering that the representative of a genocidal terrorist organisation was among the speakers) "World Against War Conference". Despite Tory calls for the government to prevent Moussawi from entering Britain, he attended the conference, which was held last Saturday. Admittedly, his speech was rather more restrained than that given by George Galloway, who proclaimed Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah the rightful president of Lebanon, but nonetheless his presence shames both the Stop the War Coalition, who invited him, and the government, which, unlike its Irish counterpart, did nothing to prevent the entry of this terrorist propagandist into Britain.

But that's not all. Because, while Moussawi is free to enter Britain, and speak to a bunch of terrorist supporters and delusional liberals, the Israeli public security minister, Avi Dichter, has had to decline an invitation to give the keynote speech at a counter-terrorism seminar held at King's College London, for fear that if he set foot in this country, he would be arrested. This is because in 2005 Israeli "human rights activists" persuaded a British court to grant an arrest warrant against Mr Dichter, in relation to the assassination in 2002 of a Hamas terrorist by the Israeli Air Force, in which a number of Palestinian civilians were killed. As the then head of Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet, Mr Dichter had played a part in planning the operation.
English courts have jurisdiction to try suspected "grave breaches" of the Geneva Convention, under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957. While Mr Dichter would normally enjoy diplomatic immunity, he has been told that this would not apply in this case, since his visit to Britain would be in a personal, rather than a diplomatic capacity. The British government has reportedly promised the Israeli government that the law will be altered to ensure that Israeli officials can come to Britain without the threat of arrest hanging over them, and it is to be hoped that it will do so swiftly. But until it does, we have in this country an intolerable situation whereby Hezbollah propagandists can come and go as they please, but government ministers in the Middle East's only democracy cannot.

UCU Israel Boycott Defeated

The union that represents academics in the UK has announced today it will not proceed with plans to debate a boycott of Israeli universities following legal advice.

The University and College Union, whose members passed a motion at its conference in May to circulate and discuss a call to boycott, has been told by lawyers that the move would be unlawful.

Sally Hunt, the union's general secretary, has called a halt to a proposed regional tour to discuss the issue with members. Branches are to be told that making a call to boycott Israeli institutions would "run a serious risk" of infringing discrimination legislation.

The boycott call was also deemed to be outside the aims and objectives of the union.

Delegates at the UCU conference voted by 158 to 99 in favour of a motion to recommend boycotts in protest at Israel's "40-year occupation" of Palestinian land and to condemn the "complicity" of Israeli academics.

However, lawyers told the union that while members were free to debate Israeli policies, it should not spend resources on gauging opinion of something that should not be implemented.

The union said it would now consider ways to press ahead with the non-boycott elements of the motion, such as ending joint projects between UK and Israeli academics.

This decision of the UCU's actually leaves me with somewhat mixed feelings. I have always opposed the boycott, so I am happy to learn that it will not be going ahead. However, I would much prefer the pro-boycott campaign to have collapsed due to lack of support from within British academia, rather than simply because it infringed anti-discrimination laws. Had it collapsed as a result of opposition from within the UCU, then that would have indicated that the majority of British academics were not rabidly anti-Israel. As it is, we are left with the distinct possibility (and, indeed, the strong impression) that the majority of our university professors would love to push ahead and boycott Israel, and that only the law is stopping them from doing so.

On a related topic, I would like to point readers in the direction of two posts at Melanie Phillips's blog, describing some of the ways in which left-wing teachers feed anti-Israel propaganda to our children, under the guise of teaching "citizenship". Well worth a read.

UN website hacked

Apparently, the hackers left anti-American and anti-Israeli comments on the website.

I'm surprised anyone noticed anything different.

Israeli MKs call for boycott of Britain

I read in The Times that some Israeli Members of the Knesset have called for a boycott of all UK goods, in retaliation for the University and College Union's latest display of anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist stupidity.

While I sympathise strongly with Israel, and would be happy to see an Israeli counter-boycott of UK universities, I think that calling for a complete boycott of Britain is a bit of an over-reaction, and I would be surprised if it were actually to happen. Nonetheless, we must recognise that any country can only be pushed so far. In recent months we have seen not only academics, but also journalists move towards a boycott of Israel, while there have been similar calls from within the medical profession. An increasing share of the public is not merely indifferent to Israel, but openly hostile, and it is not uncommon for otherwise perfectly normal people to transform into spittle-flecked fanatics demanding blood and annihilation the moment Israel is mentioned. British citizens have carried out terrorist attacks in Israel, and more seem ready to do so. If present trends continue, there will before long come a time when Israel can justifiably see in the UK, not just a weak-willed ally, but actually an enemy.

Which is, of course, exactly what people like the members of the UCU want.

Cross-posted at ATW

At ATW...

...I have written a post on the allegedly treasonous behaviour of the Israeli Arab former Member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara.