Sean Wallis, antisemitism, Lehman Brothers, anti-boycott lawyers: when in a hole, stop digging

Here, on Harry’s Place.

Eve Garrard and Norman Geras on Jon Pike’s resignation

Here, on normblog.

UCL UCU can see nothing antisemitic in connecting anti boycott lawyers with Lehman Brothers

UPDATE I emailed Sean Wallis and invited him to respond.  Specifically I invited him to answer the two questions below.  He answered saying that he refuses to explain.  He refuses to explain how “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down” can be legitimately connected to anti-boycott lawyers.  He refuses to explain what he was actually trying to say.     DH

A meeting of 60 members of the UCL UCU branch has unanimously voted to back its branch secretary Sean Wallis.

At the pro-boycott fringe meeting at UCU Congress last week, Wallis claimed that a threat to union democracy comes from anti-boycott lawyers backed by those with “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down.”

Sean Wallis has not denied having connected “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down” to anti-boycott lawyers representing members of the UCU.

How can this connection be explained in a way which is not antisemitic?

What was the point that Sean Wallis was trying to make?

Read more here and here.

RESOLUTION: DEFEND UCU BRANCH SECRETARY SEAN WALLIS

UCL UCU notes

1. That a report has appeared in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz alleging anti-semitism in comments made by UCL UCU branch secretary, Sean Wallis, in a personal capacity, at a fringe meeting at UCU Congress 2009.

2. That UCU delegates voted en bloc in line with branch policy at UCU Congress, including in relation to our position on any putative Academic Boycott of Israeli Institutions.

3. That unfounded allegations have the potential to intimidate and damage this union and its members.

UCL UCU believes

1. That anti-semitism, clearly defined as racism against Jews, must be opposed in exactly the same terms as any other racist ideology, namely, on the basis that an injury to one is an injury to all.

2. That trade union and academic freedom entails the right of members to adopt contrary positions, and to debate international issues on their merits, free from threat of legal action or libel.

3. That this particular allegation of anti-semitism is without foundation.

UCL UCU affirms that Sean Wallis has an impeccable reputation not just as a trade union activist and democrat but also as a consistent opponent of racism in all of its forms, including opposition to anti-semitism.

UCL UCU resolves

1. To stand by our branch secretary and against any witch-hunt of him.

2. To call on the National Executive Committee of UCU publicly to register its support for this union officer in all relevant publications, and to condemn the unfounded campaign being waged against him.

Jon Pike, elected opponent of the boycott on UCU Executive, resigns

Open Letter from Jon Pike to Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU

Dear Sally,

UCU Congress last week adopted resolutions in support of an academic boycott against Israel.  As you know very well, the adoption of that resolution is in defiance of the considered majority view of the membership of the union. Whether or not such resolutions can be implemented, or have been declared void, their adoption is a violation of the democratic principle that the union ought to represent its membership.

It will be said that the UCU, on behalf of its membership, and on behalf of the academic community in Britain, would wish to push for an academic boycott of Israel, but is prevented from doing so by legal means.

This claim is entirely false. The members have not supported such a proposal, and they have not been asked their views.

Both Congress in 2008 and 2009, and a senior committee of the union have rejected calls for a ballot of the membership.  An amendment from my branch, to this year’s conference, calling for a ballot of the membership on this proposal was ruled out as a ‘wrecking amendment.’  It seems there is something incendiary about asking the members directly to express their views.  The call for a ballot has been rejected in the knowledge that, and because, such a ballot would lead to the overwhelming defeat of the boycott proposals.

When proposals for boycott of Israeli universities have been considered by branches of the union and its predecessors, they have been overwhelmingly rejected. Members at Reading, Open, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Bath, Warwick, UCL, Strathclyde, Lancaster, Kingston, LSE, KCL, Birmingham, Bristol, UEA, Sussex, Cardiff, LSHTM, The Institute of Education, QMWL, Aberystwyth, Swansea, Southampton, and others, have voted, at branch meetings, to reject such proposals. Previous similar proposals have been repudiated by individual branches, and overwhelmingly rejected by branch ballots of their membership.

The resolutions in question have been rushed through, in a way that has actively prevented the membership from scrutinising them.  Papers concerning the resolution have been distributed extremely late, with no explanation.  Legal advice, paid for by the members concerning the resolution has been withheld from elected representatives, branch presidents, and the membership.

The leadership of the union, and its Congress, which are both controlled by the Socialist Workers’ Party, has exhibited contempt for the views of its members on this matter, and on others, such as the crazy decision to ballot for industrial action, and the dishonest cover up by the SWP that has followed the aborting of this ballot.

In National Executive elections, less than ten percent of the membership now vote.  The NEC cannot be said properly to represent either the membership of the union, or the academic community in Britain.

If the union was a democratic space, in which the majority of the membership was able to determine policy, then there would be a case for remaining active in the union, and working for a change of policy. In its predecessor union, democratic mechanisms were available which allowed the overturning of a similar policy on April 26^th 2005.

But the UCU does not provide such a democratic space, and the procedures available in the AUT were removed at the time of merger.

The UCU cannot be considered a democratic union, representative of its members.

This has the following consequences:

We have a union that is able to send its President on trips to the Caribbean, at the members’ expense, to “celebrate the Cuban revolution” but that is unable to organise a legal ballot on industrial action in defence of jobs.

We have a union that has produced misleading and dishonest statements to the membership, on matters of fact, about both the ballot for industrial action, and about its policy on Israel and Palestine, and in which opponents of such a policy are subject to threats of legal action, smears, personal attack, and exclusions.

We have a union that has consciously abandoned its role of representing academics professionally.

We have a union that has brought academics in Britain into disrepute, by its willingness to countenance and support violations of the Principle of Universality of Science and Learning, and by condoning and supporting attacks on academic freedom, such as the outrageous and discriminatory actions of Professor Mona Baker in dismissing two Israeli members of her editorial board.

We have a union that, since merger, has allowed the systematic distortion and violation of democratic norms.  This works through a complex system of reserved seats, fractional branches and unaccountable, unrepresentative ‘regional committees’ each of which helps to entrench an anti-democratic system of double counting into its decision-making.  All of this has been done in violation of the agreements made at merger.   The merger has been a disaster for academic trade unionism in Britain.

We have a union that has allowed the distribution of antisemitic material on its internal lists, and the peddling of antisemitic conspiracy theories by some of its members, whilst banning anti-racist and Jewish members who have objected to such material.

We have a union from which hundreds of members – many of them Jewish – have resigned in protest at the unwarranted exceptionalism of its attitude to Israel.  I believe that many more will do so.

We have a union that entirely refuses to investigate concern about institutional antisemitism when raised through the proper channels, by members. The UCU is now the most complacent public institution in Britain with respect to the current rise in antisemitism.

Members of the UCU will ignore the decisions of its Congress, and continue to engage in academic collaboration and research with Israeli and Palestinian colleagues, and Israeli and Palestinian Universities, and they will be right to do so.

Academics in Britain, will, of course, ignore the UCU’s policy on this matter, and they will, of course, be right to do so.

It would be good if academics had a democratic, effective, professional and serious union to represent them in negotiating with the employers and in protecting their terms and conditions of employment.

That is, sadly, no longer the case.

I therefore resign my seat on the NEC.

Dr Jon Pike

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy

The Open University

Formerly Nationally elected member NEC (Pre-92)
The Jewish Chronicle report of Jon’s resignation is here.

Student protester arrested on Israeli Campus

This piece, by Mel Bezalel, is from Jpost.com.

A student distributing leaflets expressing opposition to the new anti-Nakba Day Knesset bill outside the Ben-Gurion University campus in Beersheba on Sunday was arrested by police.

The arrest resulted in a student protest later that night that took place alongside a ceremony attended by the school’s board of governors and VIPs being awarded honorary doctorates.

Noah Slor, 27, a master’s student in Middle Eastern studies and a teaching assistant, was handing out fliers along with four Arab student activists on Sunday afternoon. After being asked to stand at least a meter away from the school’s gate and taking up the issue with a university security guard, she was arrested by police for trespassing and humiliating a public official – the security guard – and questioned at the Beersheba police station for three hours.

The incident is the latest to occur as part of a broader dispute sparked by the university’s plans to constrain student demonstrations with bureaucracy and fees.

“Arabs in Israel are a bit afraid to go against such orders, because they always have something to lose,” Slor told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “For me as a Jew, it’s easy, so I tried to make a couple of phone calls… and I was told I was standing in a private area in which we’re not allowed to distribute fliers, which is nonsense.”

Slor was then informed by security that if the group did not move, the police would be called. The activists remained and within 15 minutes, the officers arrived and arrested Slor.

Slor said she believed the university realized its actions were “getting out of hand” but couldn’t stop the chain of events once they had begun: “They realized they made a mistake, but it was a matter of ego and they had to do something, and charging Arabs would be perceived as racist, so I think I was the right person at the right time.”

After two-and-a-half hours of questioning by police, the university’s security team called the station to drop the charges, on the direct orders of university president Rivka Carmi. Slor thinks that Carmi’s action was a direct result of pressure from professors who voiced outrage at her arrest.

Despite the charges being dropped, she was informed that a criminal file was still outstanding. Slor must now begin an extensive, bureaucratic process to have the file closed. She also intends to file a complaint against the security guard and is lobbying for his dismissal.

Sixty students incensed by the arrest held a demonstration in the evening, outside the university ceremony.

They stood for an hour, with tape covering their mouths to signify being gagged by the university, and holding placards reading: “Security department = secret police.”

University president Carmi told students she would meet with them, but failed to appear.

Some of the university’s governors conversed with demonstrators, along with artist Dani Karavan and actress Gila Almagor, who both reportedly shook hands with students.

University spokesman Amir Rosenblitt commented on Monday: “Yesterday afternoon, political activists distributed fliers against the government decision about the Nakba. University regulations permit the distribution of fliers on the condition that it’s done off campus. The activists, who were distributing fliers in an area considered part of the campus, paid no attention to security guards who tried to get them to stop. The police were called and detained one female activist and one security guard to give testimony, and afterward both were released.”

As a result of recent university security clashes with students, an open panel discussion on the topic is to be held next week, spearheaded by Prof. Neve Gordon, head of Ben-Gurion University’s department of politics and government.

This piece, by Mel Bezalel, is from Jpost.com.

Michael Cushman and the Jew-free UCU Congress

Michael Cushman

Mike Cushman is one of the leaders of the boycott campaign in UCU.  In the past he has pushed antisemitic conspiracy theory.   He has defended union members who passed material from David Duke’s website around the union.  He has rhetorically employed antisemitic stereotypes.   He has been feted by the Iranian state propaganda machine.  He has fawned over Hamas.

Now Cushman has provided the following breathless commentary of events at yesterday’s UCU Congress debate:

“It was brilliant. The Zionists bareley showed up. John Pike was totally isolated. On the first vote about invetigsting institutional anti-semitism in UCU he got about 6 votes out of 350.”

“On the key motion there were only two speakers against Pike and a woman from Workers Liberty, when the president asked for other speakers against no-one put their hand up. The vote was on my estimate about 300-30 (we should have asked for a count to rub salt into the wound).”

“What we must remember this was a victory built not just on hard work but even more on 1400 murders in Gaza.”

“Mike, in haste from Bournemouth”

This commentary requires a little bit of unpacking.  Two years ago, at the first Congress of the newly merged UCU, there was a big, very tense, very nasty debate about the boycott.  Cushman kicked off the ‘debate’ that day by declaring that he was “not going to be intimidated” – and received a huge cheer for it.  What he meant, and what Congress understood, was that he was not going to be intimidated by Jewish power.  And Congress followed his lead and voted for a boycott, many delegates showing clear signs that they were collectively excited at the feeling that they were standing up to the Jews.  Sorry.  To the Zionists.  This 2007 Congress was a horrible Jew-baiting Congress and it voted for a boycott motion.  When somebody stood up and mentioned antisemitism that day he was howled down by the delegates.

The Jew-baiters in UCU had a de facto deal with the union leadership – which was to allow them their fun at Congress but on the condition that the union would not actually do anything at all to implement any boycott.

Two years later, yesterday, the atmosphere was different.  There was not much cheering and there was not much howling.

Why?  Because there were no Jews left to bait.  As Michael Cushman says above, “the Zionists barely showed up”.

The Chair of the Open University Branch showed up to make a case for debating whether to have a ballot.  Congress voted him down.

Jon Pike showed up to argue that Congress should ask the union leadership to find out why Jews are resigning from the union.  Congress said it didn’t want to find out why Jews are resigning from the union.

Camila Bassi showed up, a member of a small Trotskyist group, she made a brave Trotskyist speech against the boycott.  Congress voted her down.

But there were speeches against the boycott available for anyone who wanted them.  But there was nobody left to make them.

There were no Jews there to speak against the boycott.  “The Zionists barely showed up”.

The soft left faction of union activists, the “reasonablists”,  the people who had always said they were against the boycott, remained silent, except for Mary Davis’ procedural question.  Perhaps some of them had gone soft on the boycott.  Perhaps some of them were frightened of being made into pariahs in the union if they stood up against antisemitism.  Not one of them spoke.  Not one of them insisted on making their argument.

Michael Cushman is excited by his victory.  He hasn’t noticed the significance of the fact that Congress is now free of Jews.  Except for Jews like him, the Jews who speak “as a Jew” but  who are quite unable to recognize antisemitism.  Haim Bresheeth.  John Rose.  Michael Cushman.  These are the Jews now, at UCU Congress.

David Hirsh

UCU Congress

At the boycott fringe meeting Sean Wallis, branch secretary of UCL UCU claimed that a threat to union democracy comes from lawyers backed by those with “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down.”  Wallis pushes antisemitic conspiracy theory about how Jews stole money from Lehman Brothers, syphoned it off to Tel Aviv, caused the global credit crunch, and also backed the lawyers putting pressure on UCU to obey the law.  Nobody at the fringe meeting protested at this antisemitic speech.

Congress was asked to mandate the NEC to find out why Jewish members of the union were resigning and why they were making allegations concerning institutional antisemitism in the union.  Congress decided not to ask the NEC to find out why Jews are resigning from the union.

Congress decided not to have a debate about whether to ballot members of the union to find out if they want a boycott.

Congress voted to support a boycott of Israel and the union said that the policy would be void.

Flesh is Grass sums up the debate here.

Why the lecturers’ union must oppose a boycott of Israeli universities – Jon Pike

This piece, by Jon Pike, is from the Education Guardian.

It’s not comfortable to respond to Dr Amjad Barham’s argument for an academic boycott of Israel – he teaches and works in conditions much more difficult than those in which I teach and work. But he will, I’m sure, agree that a bad and dangerous argument is exactly that, whatever the circumstances of the person who makes it.

His argument for an academic boycott is opposed by the majority of members of the University and College Union.

This is one reason supporters of the boycott have today backed down and are now seeking more discussion. Dr Barham should ask them why they are not calling for a ballot of the members to endorse a boycott. The answers would be instructive.

The UCU congress is likely to be sharply critical of Israel’s actions during the recent conflict in Gaza and to condemn the rockets fired at Sderot. It will outline proposals in support of Palestinian academics and carefully analyse the conditions of academic freedom in Israel, Palestine, Columbia and Burma.

Dr Barham (but not the Palestinian Authority or the Palestinian general federation of trade unions) asks for more. He asks that we endorse proposals initiated by professors Steven and Hilary Rose to exclude Israelis from the international research community.

He invokes the analogy with apartheid – but there is so much wrong with this analogy that it obscures more than it enlightens. For example, everyone sensible advocates a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine – nobody did in South Africa.

Dr Barham wants us to rank rights, so that “loftier” ones, such as academic freedom, are sacrificed for basic ones. This is deeply problematic. It completely undermines the idea of academic freedom, making it conditional on a wider political project. We are asked to suspend the academic freedom of Israeli colleagues because of our opposition to the actions of their government, but this is not a test applied anywhere else in the world. The proposal to boycott Israel exhibits an unwarranted exceptionalism.

And that is why the proposal is discriminatory. It discriminates against a group of people; applies hard treatment to them. It does so in the absence of a morally relevant property that the group – and no other group – possesses. This makes it unjust.

The group harmed consists almost entirely – and not by coincidence – of Jews. Whatever the intentions of the boycotters, this discrimination against Jews is undoubtedly one effect of the exceptionalism of their proposal.

The proposal is discriminatory, and the union has been told as much by its lawyers. It also takes us beyond the bounds of our proper purposes, which will come as no surprise to lecturers fighting to hang on to their jobs and keep their courses open, frustrated by our obsessive annual slanging match over Israel and Palestine.

We should offer support and solidarity to Palestinian academics. But we cannot and should not exclude Israeli universities from the international academic interchange that benefits us all.

• Dr Jon Pike is a member of the UCU executive. He is writing in a personal capacity

This piece, by Jon Pike, is from the Education Guardian.

UCL UCU branch secretary Sean Wallis lines up with antisemitic Lehman Brothers conspiracy theorists

Sean Wallis, UCL UCU Branch Secretary

The campaign to exclude people who work at Israeli universities – and only them -  from the global academic community is being pushed hard this week, for the 7th year running, by a small coterie of antizionists in the University and College Union.

One thing we have learnt in that five years is that whenever this campaign is pushed, antisemitic rhetoric, tropes, images and jokes are not far behind.

The following comes from Arieh Kovler of the Fair Play Campaign from UCU Congress in Bournemouth:

BRICUP, the British organisation behind the boycott of Israeli academics, held a fringe meeting at UCU Congress yesterday in Bournemouth.

The official speakers took up most of the time, but there was time for a few questions from the audience. Of course, these ‘questions’ were really statements from the various pro-boycott attendees.

One of these was Sean Wallis, UCL UCU branch secretary. He wanted to speak about how UCU should debate a boycott whether it’s legal or not. One of the threats he mentioned was from lawyers backed by those with “bank balances from Lehman Brothers that can’t be tracked down.”

The remark elicited a few sniggers, though not the outright laughter of an earlier joke by Haim Bresheeth about Israeli friendly fire casualties.

Now, a popular conspiracy theory circulating online claims that Jews transferred $400 billion out of Lehman Brothers to untraceable bank accounts in Israel, a couple of days before Lehman filed for bankruptcy. This lie first appeared on a website run by the Barnes Review, an American ‘revisionist’ organisation with a particular interest in Holocaust denial, and spread on various right-wing anti-Zionist websites.

It is not entirely obvious what Mr Wallis is referring to by claiming that legal threats against UCU are funded by “bank balances from Lehmann Brothers that can’t be tracked down.” Perhaps he could clarify his remarks.

Update – see Harry’s Place for Sean Wallis’ non-refuting denial.

Update 2 – more from Harry’s Place, further to correspondence with Sean Wallis. Sean Wallis “doesn’t seem to appreciate that antisemitic theories are antisemitic because they spread poisonous lies about Jews, not because they’re authored by “a racist right winger”.”

There was not due to be any debate on any other international issue at this Congress – only debate about the exclusion of Israelis and a one-sided and ahistorical discussion of Palestine.  The NEC slipped in a last minute emergency motion relating to Colombia so that the union could not be accused of singling out Israel.

There is nothing on Sri Lanka.

There is nothing on Darfur.

There is nothing on Iraq.

There is nothing on Afghanistan.

There is nothing on Zimbabwe.

There is nothing on Russia.

There is nothing on China.

The only boycott campaigned for is a boycott of Israelis.

SWP backs down, and then indulges in disgusting anti-democratic display

Jon Pike, Chair of Engage and elected UCU National Executive Member blogs from UCU Congress at Bournmouth

The UCU Congress starts today at Bournemouth. The boycott debate takes place this afternoon.  As usual, a lot of the shenanigans go on behind the scenes, and this year is no exception. On the plus side, the SWP/UCULeft have staged a partial climb down from their pro-boycott resolution.  They’ve watered down the motion so that instead of endorsing the ‘Palestinian call for a boycott’, the boycott should simply be discussed in the branches. Again.  There’s a recognition that an academic boycott is illegal.

This is of course the familiar annual strategic climb down by the SWP.

But at the same time, the SWP can’t resist its anti-democratic instincts.  Through UCULeft, they have a majority on the Conference Business Committee – the committee that determines what gets on to the order paper.  And at yesterday’s meeting CBC ruled out an amendment from the Open University.  It is, apparently, a ‘wrecking amendment’.

What did this dodgy amendment say?  How was it improper? Was it late, or discriminatory, or illegal, or in conflict with the UCU’s constitution?  No, motions like that sail through on to the agenda.

No.  It called for a ballot of the members before any boycott is introduced.

Direct democracy is anathema to the SWP.  Even discussing a ballot is so dangerous, that it needs to be ruled out by bureaucratic means.

Individual UCULeft supporters should be ashamed of themselves.  Some are.  What price now their claims to favour a ‘democratic, member-led’ union?

There is a chance that conference will overturn the report of CBC this morning.  It will certainly be challenged by the president of the Open University branch.  But it’s unlikely, since the SWP more or less control Congress.

This leaves them free to indulge in – let’s be blunt – a disgusting display of their contempt for the views of the membership of the union.

The SWP/UCULeft is a profoundly anti-democratic force in the labour movement. Large numbers of UCU members have contempt for them.  Which is, somehow, kind of appropriate.

Jon Pike, elected member UCU NEC