News from the New Party

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Antisemitism in the UK: no shame, no fear

Last week the University and Colleges Union (UCU), recently formed as a merger of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), held its inaugural conference in Bournemouth. As a new institution it promptly turned its attention to the most urgent issues facing further and higher education today: it voted to recommend to its branches a boycott of Israeli universities and academics. This is not altogether a surprise - both the AUT and NATFHE have "form" on this issue - but it is no less disgraceful for that. Israel, while not without its faults, is a liberal democracy under constant threat and constant attack. And yet the efforts of the State of Israel to defend itself from terrorist attacks from Hamas to the South and Hezbollah to the North are constantly misrepresented in the British media: the threat from Iranian President Ahmadinejad to "wipe Israel off the map" is laughed off as mere eccentricity or rhetorical device.

In this context, the despicable email sent to the Board of Deputies of British Jews by one Ms Pamela Hardyman is notable for revealing candidly the underlying motivations of the anti-Israel movement. Ms Hardyman is apparently a "writer" and member of the National Union of Journalists. She would seem not to be a particularly successful or prolific writer, as a search of the Amazon website reveals only one small publication in her name. It may be, therefore, that her notorious email is the most significant thing she will ever write, inasmuch as it lays bare the overt anti-semitism of the leftist anti-Israel movement, and with its half-hearted holocaust denial and Jewish conspiracy theories evokes the true spirit of 1930's Jew-hatred encapsulated by the Nazis whom she affects to detest. We therefore reproduce the email in full (thanks to Stephen Pollard):

From: Pamela Hardyment

Sent: 26 May 2007 13:53

Subject: Darfur

Ohmigod

You are worried about Dafur!!!!!!!!!!! Yet you have in a wonderful Nazi like killing machine (thousands of palestinians have died or are incarcerated in camps, including Gaza and the West Bank) backed by the world's richest jews and , you are joking about Darfur aren't you?

Whatever you say, and I don't want to hear what you have to say because it will be the same old rhetoric, we in the UK have had enough of Israel, we (the NUJ of which I am a member) have finally voted to boycott Israeli goods (I have been doing this since 1957 so it just legitimises it and spreads the word, all items with 7.29 in the bar code, Jaffa Carmel, etc) - universities will bring in an academic boycott and architects are now joining in too. It won't stop there, we will do all in our power to make sure that you do not take any more land (you have already taken mine and refuse to pay for it). We can no longer send money to the PLO or Hamas, but we are sending people, we are not afraid of your wall, your evil soldiers (and you worry about one missing soldier, ha!) and will continue. We used to be mild, respected you because of the so called holocaust (a nice round number 6 million, what about the homosexuals, gypsies, deformed, dissenters, they NEVER get a mention and my family were among them)

So yes, we are very angry, we are working against Israel whereas before we supported you, and we will do all in our collective power to make life as uncomfortable for you as you make it for the Palestinians, shame on you, shame on all jews, may your lives be cursed

Yours with no shame whatsoever and no fear

pam hardyment

Why no shame and no fear? Woe betide anybody who says on the radio these days that maybe homosexuality isn't such a great idea. Even the mildest criticism of Islam invites condemnation and sometimes worse. So isn't it scandalous that in this politically correct day and age, visceral Jew-hatred can be brazenly promoted in this way? It has been noted by a parliamentary inquiry that anti-semitism is on the rise in this country. It is to be hoped that the government will at some point soon see fit to take real action to counter this phenomenon.

In the meantime, boycotting is a game that anyone can play. The proposed academic boycott has already put British universities at risk from a further boycott by American institutions. And we very much hope that nobody will buy Pamela Hardyman's wretched book.

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Antisemitism in the UK: no shame, no fear