A group of Jewish academics working at universities across Scotland have urged their institutions to divest from Israel and reject the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.
The Scottish Universities Jewish Staff Network – which brings together Jewish staff and researchers in higher education across the country – made the call in an op-ed for Scottish daily The National.
The group said the IHRA definition was being “weaponised” to stifle criticism of Israel amid what they described as its genocide in Gaza.
“The Scottish Universities Jewish Staff Network have been advocating against the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, mindful of the risks to academic freedom and pluralism, the bread and butter of liberal civil society,” they wrote.
“Right now, twenty-two months into the Gaza genocide, we can clearly see the disastrous harm of stifling criticism of Israel by the weaponisation of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, at times without even adopting it as an official institutional policy.”
“Rather than tackling anti-Semitism as this quasi-legal instrument purports to do, it has created the false equivalence between Jews and Zionism, associating us all, including dissident Israelis, with the horrendous genocide that we unequivocally oppose,” the group added.
Their statement follows the University of Edinburgh’s announcement last month that it would be considering whether to de-adopt the definition and divest from Israeli companies.
This came after the publication of a report examining the university’s historical links to transatlantic slavery and empire.
Humanitarian crisis
The report also recommended establishing a Palestine Studies Centre to investigate the legacy of the Balfour Declaration, as well as offering scholarships to Palestinians.
“When one looks into Balfour’s legacy, some of today’s truisms fall apart. The one most concerning for us, as Jewish staff members in Scottish universities, is the conventional wisdom so deeply rooted in our public discourse and institutional frameworks that anti-Zionism is, by default, anti-Semitism,” the group wrote in the op-ed.
They endorsed the report and “reject the implication that Jewish safety is compromised by supporting Palestine.”
“Furthermore, many of us, including Israeli dissidents, vehemently criticise the Israeli occupation, oppression, and genocide of the Palestinian people. And for good reasons, as outlined in this excellent report,” they added.
The group called on universities to: “First, to reject the IHRA definition and rely on existing EDI policies against racism to address anti-Semitism without separate measures. Second, to divest from all organisations which sustain or are linked to the Israeli State. Third, to actively engage with Palestinian scholars and institutions to rebuild Palestinian higher education in the wake of Israeli scholasticide in Gaza.”
Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 61,000 people in Gaza, besides a deepening humanitarian crisis that has led to deaths by starvation, disease and displacement.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
