JTA – Around 200 academics from the United Kingdom and the United States have signed a petition defending a British university lecturer who had summoned Jewish students on his campus “pagans” Israel, “a violent, racist regime,” foreigners involved in ethnic cleansing. ”
Jewish groups and organizations have complained about the comments made by David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, made at an online video conference on February 13. Some have make a call.
Signatories to the letter published Friday in support of Miller include linguist Noam Chomsky and sex theorist Judith Butler, both Jewish Americans. The names of Miller’s defendants were removed from the online petition without explanation.
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“Dr. Miller a distinguished scholar. It is internationally renowned for highlighting the role of powerful actors and well-resourced coordinated networks in the handling and management of public platforms, providing its into racism, ”read the petition.
Miller stated in the video conference, entitled “Labour’s Free Speech Campaign,” that he supported the “end of Zionism as an ideology of action” and that there were complaints from the Jewish Society The University of Bristol, which is a union of Jewish students, surpassed its predecessor. fulminations against people and Israel show “There is a real issue of abuse here – of Jewish students on British camps being used as political pagans by a violent, racist, foreign regime involved the cleansing of race. “He declared the Jewish Society’s open support for Zionism.
Marie van der Zyl, president of the board of British deputies, wrote last week to the university’s president, Hugh Brady, seeking the removal of Miller.
Marie van der Zyl (Courtesy of JTA)
“By failing to end Professor Miller’s tenure as a member of a faculty, the University is making a real impression on him,” van der Zyl’s letter said. The university “protects someone whose rants would not look out of place on the pages of Der Sturmer,” she said, referring to an anti-Semitic publication affiliated with the Nazi German Party.
A university spokesman told the Jewish Chronicle in London last week “We do not support Dr Miller’s comments about our Jewish students. ”
In the petition defending Miller, who has refused to apologize for or withdraw, his proponents state that “the attacks on Professor Miller stem from a speech on Islamophobia which he introduced to students at Bristol University two years ago. ”
At that event, he suggested that the British people use interfaith events with Muslims, including cooking chicken soup, to increase acceptance of Zionism among Muslims.
“The Israelis have sent people,” Miller said, “especially through interfaith work … leaking investigations and Muslims working together is an apolitical way of being counters racism. ” No, it is a Trojan horse to normalize Zionism in the Muslim community. We saw it in the East London Mosque for example, where the East London Mosque unwittingly unveiled this project of making chicken soup with Jewish and Muslim communities coming together. This is an Israeli-backed project to normalize Zionism within the Muslim community and they were doing so at the same time they were attacking [Jeremy] Corbyn, ”a far-left and anti-Israel politician who was the leader of the Labor Party.
