In yet another case of the antisemitism witch-hunt we have now seen the zionist attacks on Professor David Miller come to fruition. A professor of political sociology at Bristol University, Miller was fired for sharing his opposition to the supremacist ideology of zionism and the racist state of Israel at an online meeting outside the university, a video of which surfaced and was used against him.
After an official ‘investigation’, the University of Bristol announced Professor Miller’s dismissal in a video statement on 1 October, which included the following words:
“We have a duty of care to all students and the wider university community, in addition to a need to apply our own codes of conduct consistently and with integrity. Balancing those important considerations, and after careful deliberation, a disciplinary hearing found Professor Miller did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff and the university has concluded that Professor Miller’s employment should be terminated with immediate effect.”
Academia cloaks its servility in doublespeak
This is a chilling indictment of the role of British academia, hiding its servility behind a veil of doublespeak as it silences debate in the interests of imperialism. Since zionism is in fact a racist ideology, as Prof Miller has asserted, this part of the university’s statement might as well have said: “We have a duty of care to preserve the interests of British imperialism, which relies on racism, but we also need to have codes of conduct which claim we don’t tolerate racism.
“The popular sentiment is opposed to racism, so we must pretend to oppose it also, but in practice we will sideline this ‘principle’ when it clashes with our real objectives. Balancing these considerations means that any staff member exposing our hypocrisy must be publicly discredited and have his job terminated. Zionism is a vital tool of Anglo-American imperialism and our duty is to prop it up by any means necessary.”
The university’s statement went on to say that it “regards the principle of academic freedom as fundamental and would like to reiterate that we take any risk to stifle that freedom seriously. The investigation included an independent report from a leading Queen’s Counsel who considered the important issue of academic freedom of expression and found that Professor Miller’s comments did not constitute unlawful speech.”
The QC who was asked to investigate and assess all of Prof Miller’s statements in fact found that none had constituted unlawful speech or antisemitism. This inconvenient report, although mentioned in passing in the university’s statement, was subsequently ignored both by the university and the imperialist press. So much for upholding the ‘fundamental’ principle of academic freedom!
A concerted zionist campaign
In a YouTube interview with Roshan Muhammed Salih, Prof Miller explained that the campaign to get him sacked began in April 2019 and had persisted for three years. Until the most recent case brought against him in 2021, previous accusations had been dismissed.
Prof Miller made it clear in the interview that the attacks did not come from jewish students but from the Bristol Jewish Society. This society has relations with the Union of Jewish Students, which is the British branch of the World Union of Jewish Students, a direct member of the World Zionist Organisation. Miller believes that the campaign against him can be traced back to the WZO.
It is absurd to conflate antisemitism, or more specifically a hatred of jews, with the belief that the state of Israel is attempting to those who expose the inherent racism of the zionist ideology and denounce the Israeli state’s horrific treatment of the Palestinian people. Zionism, after all, was never a jewish idea, and it is a known fact that zionists collaborated with the Nazis during WW2 in order to further their goal of establishing a ‘jewish homeland’.
In the interview, Prof Miller said that he had “anticipated this was going to happen”, and that “the way in which the investigation was handled was not very appropriate”. He maintained that all he did was “point to the campaign” against him by “zionist organisations on campus” and also “make comments” about his “views on what zionism is”: ie, “a settler colonial form of racism” and “a racist ideology” as it “was used to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians”.
Prof Miller also pointed out: “We’re living in an age in the world when racism is thought to be a bad thing and should be eliminated, according to the statements of the University of Bristol itself.” Surely rather than investigate whether Miller is ‘antisemitic’ for putting forward the view that zionism is racist, the university ought to be examining the question at issue: is Professor Miller right?
If the case can be proved, then he is right and zionism should be unacceptable on a campus that claims to have ‘zero tolerance for racism’. If the reverse can be proved, then Miller would have to suffer the humiliation of being wrong.
The loss of one’s job, career and livelihood is a disproportionate punishment for putting forward ‘controversial’ ideas at a university where freedom of expression, debate and tolerance are supposed to be encouraged. How can it be that workers’ rights can be trampled on in such a way, at the whim of some individuals or groups? This form of punishment is unhinged and dangerous, but is becoming increasingly widespread as the list of things we are banned from discussing (all in the name of ‘inclusion’, of course) steadily grows.
Burying dissent
This story has been picked up by corporate media, which unsurprisingly tend to view the dismissal as justified and whose main aim in covering it is to slander Professor Miller. A typical example was published in the Times of 2 October, in an article that did its best to instruct the reader on how to interpret the events in question.
Of particular concern to its author were words spoken by Prof Miller about Israel “trying to exert its will all over the world”. But though the writer may feign horror for his readers’ benefit, he knows perfectly well that this statement of Miller’s is the simple truth. But truth is neither here nor there for such careerist scribblers. What is at issue is control of the narrative that the imperialists and zionists have spent years constructing, and which is being steadily destroyed by real life events.
The imperialists may have the hegemony and the resources to go after the jobs of offending persons, they may succeed in instilling fear, silence and self-censorship in many areas of public and social life, but events continue to confirm the truth of Prof Miller’s assertions. By firing him for complaining about the unjust campaign against him, his bosses have merely confirmed how real and how unjust that campaign actually is.
In the Times article, a telling paragraph gives away the reason that Miller was such a target for the imperialists and their zionist stooges. For it turns out that he has been telling the truth very publicly about not one but two theatres of their genocidal criminality in the middle east. Not only has he supported the rights of the Palestinians and told the truth about Israel (thus earning himself the epithet of ‘antisemite’), but he has also exposed the lies that were told to justify the decade-long assault on Syria (making him a ‘Russian proxy’, of course).
“Miller, who quit the Labour party last year after claiming that Sir Keir Starmer took ‘zionist’ money, is a member of the self-styled Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, which a Times investigation previously found was spreading misinformation promoting President Assad and conspiracies pushed by Russia.”
If Will Humphries were being honest, he might have written instead that “Prof Miller is a consistent defender of the truth and has been dogged in exposing the calumnies put out by the imperialist lie machine against President Assad and his Russian allies in Syria. For this crime, he must be discredited and buried in smears.”
Somewhat against the grain of the rest of the article, the piece includes the following admission (followed up, of course, with details of a counter letter signed by zionist academics and authors).
“A letter of support for Miller was signed by hundreds of academics from across the world who said he ‘responded honestly’ when asked about the Israel-Palestine situation.
“The letter said ‘well-orchestrated efforts were made to misrepresent these responses as evidence of antisemitism’ and listening to the calls to dismiss him would ‘crush academic freedom’.” (Professor who called for ‘end of zionism’ is fired by Will Humphries)
Professor Miller responded to his sacking by saying that the university “has embarrassed itself and the entire British academic sector by capitulating to a pressure campaign against me overseen and directed by a hostile foreign government”.
He has promised to appeal the decision and take the university to an employment tribunal if necessary. In standing his ground and speaking up for the truth, even at the risk of his own career, he deserves the full support of all progressive people.
