The University of Sydney has distanced itself from a controversial Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions conference being hosted by its Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, after members of the Jewish community labelled the gathering an “anti-Israel hate-fest”.
The department is holding the conference on July 28-29 in conjunction with lobby group Sydney University Staff for BDS and a range of pro-Palestinian organisations. Conference events include a speech on Palestinian rights under Donald Trump by US Campaign for Palestinian Rights executive director Yousef Munayyer, a paper by pro-BDS academic Jake Lynch on the pro-Israel influence in Australia, and a panel discussing anti-Semitism with pro-BDS Jewish speakers Peter Slezak, Marcello Svirsky and Vivienne Prozsolt.
Dvir Abramovich, the chairman of Jewish group the Anti-Defamation Commission, said it was shameful that the good name of the university had been hijacked and lent to a “blatantly anti-Israel hate-fest”, affording the conference legitimacy and credibility that is “unwarranted”.
“Misusing tax dollars to officially sponsor and put out the welcome mat to a one-sided propaganda gathering that is predicated on an immoral black-listing and boycotting of a state and its people, and which violates the principles of free speech and the unrestrained exchange of ideas so fundamental to university life, is shocking,” Dr Abramovich said.
“The BDS movement at heart is anti-Semitic, and by having an academic department, which is expected to be balanced and fair, host this event, a perception has been created that the university tacitly endorses this discriminatory and extremist platform.”
He said that the university should distance itself from the conference.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the obsessive focus on BDS by the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies ignored the reality that it does nothing to advance a resolution to the conflict. “Then there is the irony that the organisers have scheduled a discussion on working with the Jewish community for a Saturday, automatically excluding observant Jews and demonstrating how tokenistic any attempts to understand the Jewish community actually are,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the University of Sydney said the institution was strongly committed to academic freedom and to being a forum for debate on a wide range of issues. “The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy is not a university-endorsed policy.”