The Mancunion can reveal that a debate held by the University on Israel was arranged by the chair of a pro-Israel organisation, who spoke at the debate and selected his own opponent.
The Whitworth Debate was held on the 31st of October last year, on the question ‘Is antizionism antisemitism?’. Speaker Raphi Bloom, who made the case that antizionism is antisemitism, invited Abdullah al Andalusi to argue that antizionism is not antisemitism.
The Whitworth Debate took place following a year of intensified protest on campus which called for the University to cut ties with Israel. Protests were particularly critical of the University’s ties with BAE Systems, a multinational corporation which manufactures parts for fighter jets used by the Israeli military.
North West Friends of Israel
Bloom told The Mancunion that he had proposed the debate to the University because he felt protests on campus had created a “toxic atmosphere” for Jewish students.
Bloom is the co-chair of North West Friends of Israel, an organisation which has been criticised by antizionist campaign groups who argue that it ‘shuts down expressions of Palestinian solidarity’.
The Mancunion has seen posts shared by North West Friends of Israel containing personal information about antizionist protestors. For example, the organisation shared the photograph, name, and place of work of an NHS employee who wore their scrubs and Palestinian badges to a protest.
Bloom told The Mancunion that North West Friends of Israel had “only reshared what these people had already put out in a public forum”. The details of the protesting NHS employee were originally shared by @gnasherJew, ‘a digital investigation team who operates under the radar, using open-source intelligence to expose antisemites’.
Bloom said: “We have people standing on the streets saying ‘globalise the intifada’, which is bus bombings and suicide bombings… So yes, we’re going to object to those people standing up and saying things that incite racial hatred and Jewish hatred.”
Intifada means “rebellion” in Arabic. The word has been used to describe the Second Palestinian Intifada, during which 500 Israelis were killed by suicide bombings committed by militant Palestinian organisations. In total, 1,000 Israelis and 3,200 Palestinians were killed.
‘Intifada’ has a history of use before the Palestinian Intifadas, and the word has been used in non-violent contexts to refer to demonstrations or strikes.
Antizionist campaign groups claim that Patrick Hackett, a senior member of staff at the University, wrote to them during last year’s protest encampment to condemn the chant ‘globalise the intifada’ as “discriminatory”. In response, activists said: “prohibiting the use of the word is both anti-Arab and denies people their right to live in dignity and freedom”.
Islamic caliphate?
Bloom told The Mancunion that he asked Andalusi to be his opponent because of his public appearances in support of Palestinian rights and his role in forming the Muslim Debate Initiative. During the debate, Bloom repeatedly criticised Andalusi’s support for an Islamic caliphate in Muslim countries.
Andalusi told The Mancunion his views could “perhaps” have been a reason why Bloom selected him as an opponent. He said: “I think Bloom wants to portray the cause of Palestinian rights as one which is motivated by what he calls ‘Islamist extremism’ or ‘Islamism’”.
Campaign groups have accused the Whitworth Debate of “a misleading and dangerous framing of Israel’s war on Palestine as a religious conflict between Jews and Muslims”.
“Normalisation debate”
The debate was delayed for 45 minutes due to disruption from antizionist protestors, who shouted slogans including “40, 000 dead” and “not a religious issue”. Bloom later called the protest “a shameful attempt to intimidate Jewish Mancunians”.
Antizionist activists alleged that the Whitworth Debate was framed on the issue of antisemitism to “deflect, divert, and confuse” following criticism of the University’s ties to Israel.
The Mancunion contacted four student organisations regarding the Whitworth Debate. The Jewish Student Society did not wish to comment, and no reply was received from the Union of Jewish Students.
The Mancunion spoke with a member of Youth Front for Palestine, the organisation which protested against the debate. They said: “As a Palestinian myself… we’ve seen this very specific and deliberate tactic of normalisation being used to try and suppress and censor and cover up quite literally the genocide that is happening at the moment in Gaza”.
“It’s been a tool that has been used for a very long time… this is very clearly not a religious issue, but an issue of injustice, an issue of apartheid, and an issue of oppression that is happening in real time”.
The YFFP member is referencing the trial at the United Nations, which accuses Israel of genocide during the war in Gaza. This trial will continue despite the recent ceasefire; in November, a United Nations report found Israeli warfare methods to be “consistent with genocide“.
The YFFP member’s argument that Israel is an apartheid state is supported by human rights organisations, as well as certain Israeli voices like Israel’s oldest-running newspaper Haaretz or its former Chief of Intelligence. The state of Israel denies accusations of genocide and apartheid.
The Mancunion also spoke with a member of Jewish Students’ Kehillah, “a queer-inclusive and antizionist Jewish community group for the students of Manchester”.
They said: “Antisemitism is a real issue, I have faced antisemitism as have many of my peers. However Bloom’s comments detract from very real antisemitism, and again conflates the actions of Israel with Jews, an inherently antisemitic assertion itself”.
“To put it bluntly, there were Mancunian Jews protesting the debate, and Bloom’s comments serve to purity test their Jewish identity on whether they’re Zionists.”
Freedom of Speech
The University claimed it held the debate in the name of free speech. University Vice President for Social Responsibility, Professor Nalin Thakkar hosted the debate, introducing the two speakers.
Thakkar said: “The University of Manchester is deeply committed to free speech and open debate, and this is the ethos which underpins the Whitworth Debates.
“Open and measured discussion about Israel and Palestine is important because it allows for a more nuanced, informed, and compassionate understanding of a complex and ongoing conflict”.
When The Mancunion put this to Andalusi, he referred to a previous incident at the university. In 2021, the Whitworth Gallery was accused of antisemitism, by groups including North West Friends of Israel, for an exhibition which addressed Israeli military violence.
In an email seen by The Mancunion, Bloom complained to the University that the exhibition ignored the role of Hamas in the conflict in Gaza. He wrote that this “could quite likely incite hatred and violence against the Jewish community in Manchester”.
In response to complaints, the University removed the exhibition’s entrance statement, which had read “We believe the Palestinian struggle is inseparable from other global struggles against racism”. Protesting what he saw as the “compromising” of the work, the exhibition’s director Dr Eyal Weizman, a British-Israeli professor, demanded it be closed down.
Andalusi told The Mancunion: “I think the University of Manchester should do more for free speech… I only want consistency on this. I think the University should humour another debate, but perhaps framed in a way that zionists might not necessarily like.
“So let’s say a debate on ‘Is Israel a rogue state?’… I suspect the University wouldn’t do so because there would be complaints from zionists.”
A spokesperson for the University of Manchester said: “Almost the single most important foundational value of a university is that of academic freedom. It is a legal right and sits at the heart of everything we do. It is vital in driving forward our research and innovation, and for helping our students to learn to think critically, and to engage constructively with different perspectives.
“The purpose of the Whitworth Debates is to air difficult and divisive issues in a way that promotes understanding of different points of view in the spirit of civil and open debate. We embrace this opportunity to give our students and staff the chance to be exposed to these different ideas and beliefs so they can come to their own conclusions about what and how they think about them.
“We accept that the views some students or colleagues may have, and the things they choose to learn about or research, might be upsetting, offensive and in opposition to the views of other students and colleagues. However, as long as they don’t cross over into illegality or are disrespectful of others, we protect the right for those views to be expressed and activities to be pursued.”
