Iranian Influence Group Protests Firing of Professor Accused of Antisemitism

An Islam­ic por­tal is report­ing that an Iran­ian influ­ence orga­ni­za­tion is orga­niz­ing a boy­cott of a British uni­ver­si­ty over the fir­ing of a pro­fes­sor accused of anti­semitism. Accord­ing to the 5pillars report:

Octo­ber 2021: Civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions and activists in the UK and over­seas are threat­en­ing to organ­ise a mass boy­cott of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol unless it revers­es its dis­missal of Pro­fes­sor David Miller for his out­spo­ken­ly crit­i­cal stance on Israel and its sup­port­ers. In a let­ter sent to the uni­ver­si­ty today, they accuse the uni­ver­si­ty of cav­ing in to the demands of the pro-Israel lob­by and vio­lat­ing the free­dom of speech that is nec­es­sary for intel­lec­tu­al enquiry.[…]

Despite being cleared of those charges, the uni­ver­si­ty fired him nev­er­the­less say­ing his con­duct had fall­en below the stan­dards expect­ed from its staff.[…]

The chair of the Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion which organ­ised the let­ter, Mas­soud Shad­jareh, said: “For Bris­tol Uni­ver­si­ty to capit­u­late to polit­i­cal pres­sure and sack a lec­tur­er for just doing his job rep­re­sents an unac­cept­able and out­ra­geous form of cen­sor­ship. It has cre­at­ed a sit­u­a­tion where­by the expres­sion of anti-Israel views are effec­tive­ly pro­hib­it­ed amongst stu­dents and staff. This dou­ble stan­dard can’t and won’t be tolerated.”

Read the rest here.

A BBC arti­cle report­ed that Miller had accused Israel of want­i­ng to “impose [its] will all over the world.” He also said Jew­ish stu­dent groups, who had lodged for­mal com­plaints about his views, were part of a “dri­ve to stop any­one speak­ing out about Pales­tine.” The British Par­lia­ment All-Par­ty Par­lia­men­tary Group Against Anti-Semi­tism accused Prof Miller of “incit­ing hatred against Jew­ish stu­dents,” the BBC goes on to report.

Sev­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Islamist and/or Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) groups also signed the letter:

• Azad Ali of CAGE: a UK Islam­ic advo­ca­cy group tied to the British Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and, accord­ing to the UK gov­ern­ment, its senior lead­ers have advo­cat­ed sup­port­ing vio­lent jihad overseas.

• Zaher Birawi of the Pales­tin­ian Forum in Britain: Birawi is a promi­nent British pro-Hamas activist and long-time Direc­tor of the Pales­tin­ian Return Cen­tre, des­ig­nat­ed by the Israeli gov­ern­ment and described as “Hamas’s orga­ni­za­tion­al branch in Europe.”

• Olsi Jazex­hiu: assis­tant pro­fes­sor at the Inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic Uni­ver­si­ty of Malaysia, per­haps the most impor­tant uni­ver­si­ty for the GMB.

• Ismail Patel of Friends of Al-Aqsa: a British pro-Hamas orga­ni­za­tion that has been described by an Israeli NGO  advo­cat­ing Israel’s elimination.

• Daud Abdul­lah and Ibrahim Hewitt of Mid­dle East Mon­i­tor (MEMO): a UK-based Islamist news por­tal close to the GMB and Hamas.

Rab­bi Ahron Cohen of Neturei Kar­ta also signed the let­ter. Neturei Kar­ta is an anti-Zion­ist Jew­ish group that has sup­port­ed Iran and GMB events.

The Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC) is a UK-based NGO found­ed in 1997. Since 2007, it has had Spe­cial Con­sul­ta­tive Sta­tus with the Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil of the Unit­ed Nations.  Its web­site says it works with dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions from Mus­lim and non-Mus­lim back­grounds “to cam­paign for jus­tice for all peo­ples regard­less of their racial, con­fes­sion­al, or polit­i­cal back­ground.” The IHRC has been sup­port­ive of the Iran­ian regime, and for many years has been cen­tral to orga­niz­ing the events of the annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Quds Day, which the US-based Anti-Defama­tion League has linked to “hor­rif­ic pro­pa­gan­da call­ing for the destruc­tion of the State of Israel, as well as mes­sages of sup­port for ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions and a del­uge of anti­se­mit­ic hate speech.”