News of the conference led to outcry in Britain. The conference was condemned not only by Jewish and Zionist organizations but also, as the Guardian reports, by Members of Parliament. Alumni returned their degrees in disgust and sponsors threatened to cut funding. According to the Telegraph, potential employers told the university that they would hesitate to hire students from the institution if it sponsored the conference.
A petition in support of the bigoted conference gathered 800 signatures, excusing the organizers' bias as an exercise in free speech, but the counter-petition garnered 6,400 signatures. The Telegraph further reports:
Fiona Sharpe, co-chair of the Sussex Friends of Israel, said: “Our aim had been to exercise our freedom of speech by exposing its bigoted, one-sided, politically motivated nature; it was not an academic conference but a gathering of Israel-haters and boycott activists. While we did not seek to subdue free speech, we are pleased it will no longer be able to hide behind the veneer of respectability and academia, which also threatened to severely damage the university’s reputation.”The lesson is clear: The reputation of BS has hit rock bottom, even in academia. Since top universities will not dignify it at all, it is trying to make inroads at third rate institutions like the University of Southampton, but these are particularly vulnerable to outrage by donors and alumni. Such weak inroads as BS has made there can be crushed with ease.
Douglas Murray, associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, said: “The event at Southampton University was not an academic conference but a rally of bigots. The proposed line up consisted only of people dedicated to the delegitimising and destruction of the state of Israel. “No academic conference on Pakistan, for instance, founded just a year before Israel - would consist solely of discussion on whether it should have been created and how to end it.”
The Board of Deputies of Jewish Deputies had urged Southampton University to cancel the event. Its president, Vivian Wineman, said: “It is formulated in extremist terms, has attracted toxic speakers and is likely to result in an increase in anti-Semitism and tension on campus.”
