The Guardian has published the following letter today [UPDATE It has now printed these replies.]

The newspaper Haaretz recently reported that the British ambassador to Israel, Simon McDonald, told a meeting at Bar Ilan University: "We had success in May" in overturning the AUT boycott of two Israeli universities. He is also reported to have described the AUT as taken over by a "highly motivated minority" who captured it to further their agenda. Bar Ilan was one of two universities targeted by a 2005 AUT boycott resolution as it had established the College of Judea and Samaria in the colony of Ariel, in the occupied West Bank (Vote ends Israeli boycott, May 27 2005). Under pressure of the boycott motion, Bar Ilan divested itself of legal responsibility for its offspring and the Israeli government hastily accorded the college independent university status. As members of AUT and Natfhe, we would like to ask the British ambassador why he was intervening in a professional trade union matter? Is it now Foreign Office practice? If not, who is the "we" to whom McDonald referred?

Signed by: Prof Steven French, AUT, University of Leeds, Prof Jonathan Rosenhead, AUT, LSE, Prof Steven Rose, AUT, Open University, Sue Blackwell, AUT, Birmingham, AG Nasser, AUT, Manchester, Phil Marfleet, Natfhe, East London, Bahadur Najak, AUT, Durham, Sean Wallis, AUT, University College London, Sami Ramadani, Natfhe, London Metropolitan, and seven others.

The boycott campaign has got this wrong. The British ambassador to Israel said exactly the opposite of what the boycotters claim that he said. His speech is available on video here (click on “opening session”) and a full and accurate transcript of what he said is available at the bottom of this post.

Simon McDonald said:

It is possible in a vote where there is a low participation, for a highly motivated minority to win it.

This is true and it is not an insult to the boycott campaign. They are highly motivated and they are a minority.

In a democratic organisation, a wrong can be righted – this is what happened in AUT and the British Government was pleased that the wrong was righted.

The British Government is allowed to have an opinion on things. This Government was right to oppose the boycott of Israeli academics.

But the British Government “recognised that the AUT was an independent player. Academic freedom cuts both ways. And whilst the British Government made its views plain, it was up to the institution to right its own wrong.”

The boycotters, their letter printed in the Guardian, write that McDonald admitted that the British Government had intervened in this matter. What McDonald had actually said was that “it is up to the institution to right its own wrong”.

McDonald finishes with this quote from Albert Einstein:

“By ‘academic freedom’ I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty. One must not conceal any part of what one has recognised to be true. It is evident that any restriction of academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action.”

The boycott campaign, and the editor of the Guardian, should take this advice more carefully.

Here is a full and accurate transcript of what the British ambassador to Israel said at the conference at Bar-Ilan, on 25 January:

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very glad to be with you today I confess I’m somewhat daunted to share a platform with Alan Dershowitz. I tend to think of sessions at a conference as meals. And Professor Dershowtiz is the main course. I am the hors d’ouvres. I don’t know about you, but my least favourite course is the hors d’ouvres so I promise that my thin gruel will be brief and then you’ll get to the gourmet roast chicken in a few minutes. I am honoured as well to take this platform today. I am conscious that this is Bar-Ilan university’s 50th anniversary year. But I’m conscious too that the reason you’ve invited the British ambassador to speak this morning is because of what the Association of University Teachers did in the UK on the 22nd of April last year.

So I would just make 3 observations about the short lived boycott. First it is a characteristic of old democracies, and I make a distinction between old democracies and mature democracies, that participation in elections of all sorts is less, and so it is possible for highly motivated minorities to capture a large organisation and use that organisation for its unrepresentative agenda and I think that is what happened on the 22nd April last year.

But my second point, a vital point, is that it is a key characteristic of democratic institutions that they try to rectify wrongs and I think that is what happened in the UK in the spring of last year which culminated in the decision of the council of the AUT to overturn the boycott on the 26th of May. It took a lot of work but it was right to do it and although it caused a great deal of upset I think it is to the institution’s credit that they managed to overturn the boycott in just over one month.

And the British Government, as Gerald said, supported it, but throughout the British government recognised that the AUT was an independent player. Academic freedom cuts both ways. And whilst the British Government made its views plain, it was down to the institution to right its own wrong.

My third point is that vigilance therefore, is vitally important. Hard won freedoms have to be won again and again. We had success last May but that success is not guaranteed to be for all time. So I think vigilance is vital to renewing that success and I think that conferences like this one are vital to that work.

So I would like to close with a quotation from Albert Einstein. It is always a privilege to be able to quote Albert Einstein. And he said the following.

“By ‘academic freedom’ I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty. One must not conceal any part of what one has recognised to be true. It is evident that any restriction of academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action.”

It wouldn’t surprise me if your conclusions at the end of this conference were pretty close to what Einstein had said.

Thank you very much.