Dear Bill and everyone on the Bristol UCU Committee,

I'm emailing you to let you know that I'm resigning from UCU again because the anti-Israel Motion 25, passed at the last UCU Congress, remains on the books.

I've managed to hang on this far because I was expecting one or other of the union's national committees to have discussed the motion further by now, preferably with a view to throwing it out as illegal - not to mention unethical in its demonization of the only Jewish country in the world alone of all countries in the world.

It's fine, of course, for people to disagree with some or many Israeli policies or actions. In the UCU context, however, such supposedly 'legitimate criticism' tends to be inaccurate and unfair at best, or at worst part of a broader campaign to delegitimize Israel's very existence - regardless of borders, government, or policies - alone of all UN member states. Indeed, that the latter agenda lies at the heart of UCU's current position on Israel-Palestine was demonstrated in detailed reports I read of the shamefully one-sided Palestinian speaker tour sponsored by the union earlier this year (see http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1842).

Moreover, UCU persistently refuses to take seriously those arguing that its attempts to exclude Israelis, and only Israelis, from the world academic community might, at least unintentionally, constitute antisemitism. This is perverse given that the union is generally concerned to avoid even homoeopathic levels of prejudice against other groups (e.g. sexism, homophobia, racism, Islamophobia), prejudice often thought to be all the more pernicious when it is relatively hidden, indirect, or unconscious.

It is perverse, furthermore, because there has been much careful and serious critique of UCU's obsessive hostility to the Jewish state from people whose union record and left-wing credentials are second to none. Contributions to the Engage website (www.engageonline.org.uk) spring to mind as the primary example. And it is also worth mentioning the Report of the All-Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism which criticized UCU's anti-Israel activity as anti-Jewish in effect (http://thepcaa.org/Report.pdf, para 213), as well as the fact that the union refused to meet with Prof Gert Weisskirchen of the OSCE to discuss his concerns in the same regard (see www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=209828§ioncode=26 ).

It seems that the UCU Executive is determined to ignore the real concerns of these and other folk, including myself, in a way that would be unthinkable if, say, black and Asian people or lesbians and gay men were voicing parallel concerns both inside and outside the union. As a result, it's become intolerable for me to remain in UCU for the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, though I realise that everyone is really busy at present, I'd be grateful for some kind of a response to this message.

Kind regards,
Jonathan

Dr. Jonathan G. Campbell,
Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies & Judaism,
Department of Theology & Religious Studies,
School of Humanities, University of Bristol.

UPDATE : Jonathan has received a reply from a Bristol UCU exec member which contains the following:

"If Jews Worldwide are fed up with being identified with the Israeli state then surely they should try harder to distance themselves from Israel's actions? They could join with non-Jews in an attempt to force the Israeli state to treat the Palestinians better. Perhaps wealthy Jews could influence Israel's actions by organising to cut off external funding?"

JONATHAN SAYS: "Here's an anonymized reply to my resignation email from one of the members of the Bristol UCU Committee, writing in a purely personal capacity":

Dear Jonathan,


I'm on the Bristol UCU exec, but I prefer to give you my personal views on the matter. I also am disturbed by certain UCU statements, as reported by Engage. But then, many "committed" socialists have always been motivated more by hatred (of the rich, for example) than by love (of the poor, for example) so I am not particularly surprised by these unpleasant statements.

For myself, I believe that action should be taken against the Israeli state along the lines of what was brought to bear against racist South Africa in the past, and for the same reason. I think the actions of the Israeli state towards Palestinians are often unfair, and sometimes racist, and for that reason I am strongly anti-Israeli. I presume that most voters in the Israeli state are Jewish, but the vast majority of Jews are not Israelis in the important sense that they vote for the policies Israel adopts. Because I have no negative feelings towards the vast majority of Jews, I am not anti-semitic. But I most definitely am anti-Israeli. If Jews Worldwide are fed up with being identified with the Israeli state then surely they should try harder to distance themselves from Israel's actions? They could join with non-Jews in an attempt to force the Israeli state to treat the Palestinians better. Perhaps wealthy Jews could influence Israel's actions by organising to cut off external Funding?

Should I similarly take action against UCU extremists who make unpleasant anti-Jewish statements? Perhaps, but I am not strongly motivated to do this. I agree with their anti-Israeli policies, and I am merely uncomfortable with the clumsy way they sometimes fail to distinguish between Jew and Israeli. Their statements may irritate you (and me) but clumsy words do not cause real suffering to millions of people, as the actions of the Israeli state do.

Best wishes,
XXXXXXX University of Bristol

See David T's take on this letter on Harry's Place.