BBC gig for enemy of free speech The inclusion of a Zionist propagandist on the BBC Radio Ulster show, Sunday Sequence, continues to rankle. There has been no response from “Auntie” to my FaceBook post on this yesterday and the offending podcast remains online. So, since I’ll be demonstrating about BBC’s coverage of the Gaza crisis along with NUJ colleagues at BBC Radio Foyle tomorrow (Wednesday 1pm), I’ve probed further into Anthony Julius of corporate lawyers Mischon de Reya. He is the London “commercial litigator” who, posing as a legal expert on war crimes, was given the opportunity by Radio Ulster presenter William Crawley to indict Palestinians as classic war criminals while exonerating the Israelis who continue to kill civilians – including five of my fellow journalists, most recently Baha Edeen Gharib, 55, and his 16-year-old daughter Ola killed when their car was targeted today. The sad irony is that while Mr Julius was allowed to promulgate his deplorable views on a subject in which he clearly has no expertise, he is a trenchant enemy of free speech on Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Indeed, he was a leading player of a Zionist strategy dubbed Lawfare” to silence all public criticism of Israel. It sought to establish, through judicial avenues, a legal precedent of “institutional anti-semitism”. It was aimed primarily at academic and trade union critics of Israel. Mr Julius initiated and then acted as legal representative for fellow Zionist Ronnie Fraser, director of the Academic Friends of Israel, in an action against the University and College Union (UCU). It ended in a comprehensive defeat last year when London judge A. M. Snelson threw out the case on all counts. The scathing 49-page ruling* said it was an “an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means” (par. 178) and it “squandered” the limited resources of the public services and the union (par. 180). Going point by point through the case presented by Mr Julius, Judge Snelson said they were “without substance”; “devoid of any merit”; “palpably groundless”; “untenable”; “obviously hopeless” and together they amounted to “the wreckage of this litigation” (par. 181). Stating that “a belief in the Zionist project or an attachment to Israel … cannot amount to a protected characteristic” under the Equality Act of 2010, the judge rejected this attempt to equate Zionism and Jewish identity and questioned Mr Julius’s legal competence in attempting to do so (par. 22). Evidence presented to the tribunal amounted to a “worrying disregard for pluralism, tolerance and freedom of expression” (par. 179). Despite the clear bench warning that such spurious litigation should never be repeated, the ‘Lawfare” strategy limped on elsewhere. A similar case was brought by Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Centre) in Australia against union attempts to pursue a BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) policy against Israel. It collapsed in what Professor Jake Lynch of the University of Sydney said should now provide “fireproof” against further “Lawfare” actions. The ruling was handed down in the first week of this month, just days before Israel started pummeling Gaza on Tuesday, 8 July. * judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Documents/Judgments/eemployment-trib-fraser-v-uni-college-union-judgment.pdf
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 20:04:38 +0000