Suppression of pro-Palestine voices ‘witch hunt to remove Muslims from public life’: UK academics

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) – The growing pressure on pro-Palestine academics and students in the UK is part of a “wider witch hunt against Muslims” by Zionists, according to a leading British academic.

“There is a dramatic increase in pressure on academics and students in universities,” David Miller, a researcher and writer on Zionism, Islamophobia and propaganda, told Anadolu.

“This is a campaign by the Zionists to remove especially Muslims from public life … This is an attempt to drive Muslims out of public life because Muslims are much more likely to raise the question of Palestine.”

Miller also emphasized that academic censorship is “a global issue” that is not just limited to the UK.

“In particular we see what the Zionists want to do with academia in Palestine, where every single university in Gaza has been destroyed, razed to the ground … and they have selectively assassinated significant numbers of staff, including the people in charge of these universities,” he said.

According to the Scholars Against the War on Palestine (SAWP), a collective of academics from around the world, Israel has bombed all 11 of Gaza’s universities since last October, while also damaging or destroying nearly 390 schools.

Israeli attacks have also killed at least 333 educators and academics, with more than 700 others injured, SAWP data shows.

“We see what the Zionists want to do and we see that is the context for all of the attacks they’ve been making over many years in the West, and in of course, the UK,” said Miller.

Miller narrated how he was personally affected as the University of Bristol sacked him in 2021 for “some comments … about Zionist organizations.”

He challenged the decision and a tribunal ruled in February this year that the professor was wrongfully dismissed.

“So, this is a live issue, which is having a deeper effect in the UK, in terms of people’s jobs lost, students expelled, visas denied,” he said.

The situation has worsened since last October and there have been “tons of complaints” against doctors, lawyers and other professionals, he said.

“We need to see this not just in the context of ideas about censorship, but indeed in terms of a witch hunt against Muslims in public life, and a witch hunt against anyone who will talk about Palestinian rights,” Miller stressed.

“It will only get worse until and unless our society learns that you have to fight back against this kind of thing.”

- ‘Attempt to silence legitimate criticism’

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since a Hamas attack last Oct. 7 despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

It has killed more than 36,700 Palestinians in Gaza and injured over 83,500 others, most of them women and children, and stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

All of this, along with the mounting censorship and pressure, has made any work for Palestine and Palestinian liberation more important than ever before, according to Brendan Ciaran Browne, an assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland’s oldest university.

“Palestine’s always been a major area of interest and that has brought a lot of challenges, a lot of difficulties,” he told Anadolu.

“But it’s very much in the spotlight at the moment, and lots of people are being attacked for their work on Palestine, lots of people are being smeared, and there are attempts to silence people for pointing out what has clearly been demonstrated to be a case of genocide against Palestinian people.”

Pro-Palestine voices have always been met with accusations of antisemitism for criticizing the state of Israel, he said.

“The conflation of the two is deeply problematic and we have seen in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, a rapid increase in the attempt to link the two together,” said Browne.

This is all, he asserted, part of an “attempt to silence legitimate criticism.”

“It’s an attempt to try and get us to stop scrutinizing the actions of the Israeli state, which as the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and lots of nation states around the world have clearly highlighted, is acting in a way that is contrary to international law,” he said.