Press Comments

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Tuesday, 16 February 2021

Response to request for comment from Josh Salisbury, Jewish News

Questions from Josh Salisbury:

[Bristol JSoc] says your remarks about Zionism, and your comments about their society, will make campus a more unsafe place for Jewish students, and has led to the society president being targeted with abuse. The UJS also says that this is “yet another instance” of you targeting Jewish students.

Can we have a response to that please?

Response from Professor David Miller:

“I have not ‘singled out’ the Bristol Jewish Society. I have merely pointed to its factual relationship with pro Israel groups. All Jewish student societies are governed by the Union of Jewish Students, a UK wide Zionist pressure group. The UJS is constitutionally bound to promoting the State of Israel and its racist ideology, Zionism. 

“Israel is engaged in a scandalous campaign of censorship on British university campuses. To portray challenges to such censorship as 'abuse' is absurd. The real abuse here is that Jewish students are being used as pawns by the State of Israel. In my case and others, leading to the manufacture of manifestly hopeless fake complaints of anti-Semitism.

“Such bullying by a foreign regime is a real threat to the targets of Zionism on campuses: Arab and Muslim students, as well as anti-Zionist Jewish students, who are routinely censored by organisations such as UJS.”

Wednesday, 17 February 2021

Response to request for comment from Kirsty Buchanan, Jewish Chronicle

Questions from Kirsty Buchanan:

During [the Building the Campaign for Free Speech] event you complained about Jewish student groups – are you not concerned these comments will make Jewish students feel less safe on campus?

At this event you also suggested your preference would be for UCL to drop the IHRA definition of antisemitism altogether, rather than look to replace it with an alternative. Given Bristol University has itself adopted IHRA I would be interested to know whether you would be in favour of Bristol itself dropping IHRA?

[...] You also state that the aim should be to "end Zionism as a functioning ideology of the world". If you would like to provide any further comment for the article in relation to this we would be happy to receive it.

Response from Professor David Miller:

“The ‘Jewish student groups’ you refer to are political lobby groups overseen by the Union of Jewish Students, which is constitutionally bound to promoting Israel. There is a real question of abuse here – of Jewish students on British campuses being used as political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing. The UJS’ lobbying for Israel is a threat to the safety of Arab and Muslim students as well as of Jewish students and indeed of all critics of Israel.

“No university should allow itself to be held hostage by the State of Israel’s campaign of censorship. Manufactured controversies around Judeophobia – such as in my case – are being used to silence criticism of Zionism and Israel. That is the purpose of the IHRA definition in practice. If Saudi Arabia was engaged in a similar censorship campaign on British campuses, we would laugh it out of the room.”

Thursday, 18 February 2021 

Response to request for comment from Ben Bloch, The Tab Bristol

“Zionism is and always has been a racist, violent, imperialist ideology premised on ethnic cleansing. It is an endemically anti-Arab and Islamophobic ideology. It has no place in any society.

“Bristol’s JSoc, like all JSocs, operates under the auspices of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), an Israel lobby group. The UJS is constitutionally bound to promoting Israel and campaigns to silence critics of Zionism or the State of Israel on British campuses. This campaign of censorship renders Arab and Muslim students, as well as anti-Zionist Jewish students, particularly unsafe.

“The UJS and Bristol JSoc have consistently attacked me with a campaign of manufactured hysteria for two years, attempting to have me sacked. The campaign reached new heights of absurdity when a Zionist activist pretended to be a student in one of my classes for which she was not registered, expressly for the purpose of political surveillance.

“This is an age-old Israel lobby tactic imported from the US, where academics are routinely harassed for teaching about Zionism and its effects. To be clear, this campaign of censorship, which has attacked British universities, political parties and public institutions, is directed by the State of Israel. Any similar attempt by another racist, militaristic foreign regime – such as Israel’s allies in Saudi Arabia or the UAE – to decide what is taught and who is employed in British universities would be laughed out of the room. Israel and its advocates deserve the same treatment.”