It does turn out that there is perhaps more to this case than we were originally told, no? In particular it appears that Delich’s email address appeared in the comments thread.

Now that’s not necessarily the moderators’ fault (although Christ knows HP is less than perfectly moderated) but it would have been a piece of information worth knowing before everybody leapt to conclusions.

ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle

The paragraph that ended the comment was an attempt to make some particularly nasty Zionist profit from the case at end, by generalising it to the extent that it an exemplar of all criticisms of Israel.

The claim is bollocks as it is the gleeful suggestion that the existence of antisemitism (and there is no charge that Delich is antisemitic, is there? The charge is that she linked to a article reprinted on a website run by an antisemite. The article was not written by the antisemite) in some criticisms of Israel makes all criticisms of Israel antisemitic. This is offensive on two levels. First, it does not follow – it is a mistake in reasoning of the first order(*). Second, such a deliberate – but perhaps persuasive – mistake in reasoning is made with politically nasty aims in mind.

(*) The only way the logic works is if our gleeful correspondent makes the claim that the terms Israel and Jew are not just interchangable in these entirely fictional hordes of antisemitic leftists, but are indistinguishable in actual fact. Such a categorisation of world is an example of the way in which some Zionist ideas demonstrate a very strange antisemitic flavour.

If you think that makes the case for criticism of Israeli policy more effective then I would suggest you’re part of the problem.

Are you cutting and pasting from someone who appears to be making the argument that, thank to Delich, criticism of Israel or Israeli policy can now be branded antisemitic? Or is this your own hope for the way the fallout of this case settles?

Matt Waddup, the member of staff responsible for the UCU activist list has now sent the following email to the list:
Time for one of my universally popular interventions

Nevertheless today’s move against Delich is significant. It is the first time that UCU has come near to recognizing that there is any problem of antisemitism in the union. It constitutes the final crumbling of the “criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, antisemitic” brick wall.

ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle

Its a shame that she spread KKK propaganda, but the damage has been amplified a thousand times by this action, and as ever when racism in the Palestinian Solidarity movement is exposed, the losers are Palestinians.

I think the point here is that as yet we don’t know for sure the basis on which she does rest the case. This may very well be specious, malicious, or wrong in principle, law or fact: and we may, if we choose, infer all or any of these. But we don’t actually know.

ejh’s latest blog post… But not today the struggle