On and off campus, Israel's supporters look to stifle dissent

I was recently invited to give a talk at the University of Liverpool, an event organised by the students’ Friends of Palestine group. Last Thursday, more than 100 people filled the Mandela Room at the Guild of Students, to listen to my presentation and engage in a Q&A. Some people, however, had tried to stop it happening at all.

On the Tuesday, the Guild informed the organisers that they had been contacted by a student who “raised concerns” about me. The Guild also revealed they had sought the advice of the Regional Higher Education/Further Education Prevent Coordinator, a government employee charged with tackling “the risk of extremism and radicalisation” on campuses.

Prevent is part of the government’s “counter-terrorism strategy”, and “aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.” Its remit includes tackling “some aspects of non-violent extremism.” The security services, police and local authorities are all involved.

Even after being told by Prevent that I speak regularly at other institutions without a problem, the Guild still imposed “control measures”, including a ban on non-UoL students attending, and a demand that the Q&A reflect “a broad range of views.”

As they considered their options, the students of Friends of Palestine initially decided to move the event to the city’s Quaker Meeting House, in order to allow non-students to attend.

On Wednesday night, local rabbi Dan Lieberman, a regional university chaplain, declared on Twitter: “Liverpool Jsoc gets drek Ben White banned from campus” (the now deleted tweet can be seen here). Untrue, of course, but it was interesting to see who was taking credit for the pressure.

Meanwhile, someone else emailed Quaker staff, claiming that my meeting had been “switched from the university campus at the last minute” as I had “been banned from there because he is inciting hatred towards Jews.”

Accusing me of “anti-Semitic tactics”, the email went on: “the Merseyside Jewish Representative Council wants to build a relationship with the Quakers promoting peace and friendship” but that “having meetings on your premises with Ben White will not be a positive move.” It concluded with the hope that the Quakers would “see fit to banning this meeting on your premises.”

In the end, all these various efforts proved futile. The Friends of Palestine returned the event to its original venue, and non-students attended. But this story is a microcosm of efforts to police the boundaries of dissent when it comes to Palestine and Israeli Apartheid: the untruths, the personal attacks and smears, the use of ‘interfaith relations’ blackmail.

To fight Palestine solidarity activists’ boycott campaigns, Israel’s apologists praise ad nauseam ‘dialogue’ and ‘conversation’. When it comes to shielding Israeli Apartheid from examination and opposition, however, they try to shut down lectures.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.