Tag: UCU

The second article in my series about the Zionist legal campaign against the UCU for discussing academic boycott — and against the BDS movement in general. Extract:

Antony Julius had taken on Fraser’s case pro bono, he said in a phone call.

Julius defended the readiness of his case, and what he said was an “ironic” comment about his chaotic references: “look at the written submissions and the range of witnesses that were deployed to see how ludicrous it is to say we were not prepared.”

He denied the case was receiving any support from the Israeli government: “I’m sorry to disappoint your fantasy of a conspiracy, but no it isn’t … Why would you assume it’s being supported by the Israeli government? … The question itself can only come from a person who is in thrall to such a fantasy.”

But one of Julius’s own witnesses was boasting to the Israeli press earlier this year about just such a “fantasy.”

Part one is here, but both articles work independent of each other.

The first in my new series of articles looking into the Zionist legal campaign against the UCU for discussing academic boycott — and against the BDS movement in general. Part two likely to follow soon after Christmas. An extract:

The director of Academic Friends of Israel is suing his own union in an employment tribunal. Ronnie Fraser accuses the 120,000-member-strong University and College Union of “institutional anti-Semitism” after its congress passed motions calling for members to discuss the Palestinian call to boycott Israeli universities.

But according to one court document seen by The Electronic Intifada, Fraser follows a definition of anti-Semitism that seems to include any criticism of Israel. It says he considers “anti-Semitism” to include comments “targeting specifically the State of Israel which was conceived as a Jewish state.”