Times reporting highlights how the London School of Economics Middle East Centre includes prominent supporters of the boycott campaign against Israel, amidst widespread coverage of £1.5 million donation from Gaddafis.
On Saturday, The Times reported that half of the board of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics are supporters of the Boycotts, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) campaign against Israel – despite the centre having prominent financial links with several authoritarian Arab states, including Libya. The furore over the relationship between the LSE and the Gaddafi regime was also the subject of a condemnatory editorial in The Times on Saturday, as well as a BBC Newsnight report on Friday.
‘LSE faces fresh embarrassment over demands for an Israel boycott’, by Dominic Kennedy, highlights how, following recent attention to donations the LSE received from Libya, specific attention is now being paid to the Middle East Centre. The investigations editor wrote:
‘The body was designed to promote impartiality, academic freedom and the strengthening of links with universities in the region. But critics point out that two of the four-strong management group are campaigners for an academic boycott of Israel.’
The two campaigners in question are Martha Mundy and John Chalcraft. In December 2010, Mundy chaired a student event with Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of an Arab newspaper, who had previously claimed that he would dance in Trafalgar Square if Iran bombed Israel. Chalcraft, who supported an LSE motion in January to boycott Israel, has previously described the country as a:
‘heavily militarized, nuclear-armed, expansionist apartheid state with extensive illegal settlement, land seizure and wall-building activity.’
Mundy is quoted in The Times’ article defending the centre’s reputation, as well as confirming that she supports the boycott of Israel:
‘Professor Mundy told The Times that the centre took extreme care to maintain the highest standards of scholarship and non-partisanship. She said she had called for “academics to avoid, as individuals, work with Israeli academic instititions [sic], not with individual Israeli academics.”’
The relationship between the LSE and the Gaddafi family was also covered in The Independent on Sunday, with Jonathan Owen reporting on both the financial donations, and allegations surrounding Saif Gaddafi’s PhD received from LSE in 2008.
Today’s Times includes another article by Dominic Kennedy based on an interview with director of the LSE Sir Howard Davies. The piece focuses on Davies’ role in providing financial advice to the Libyan regime, as well as the controversy surrounding the various donations that the university has received from the country. Kennedy also quotes Davies defending the Middle East Centre from charges of hypocrisy, citing the fact that its biggest donor is Jewish:
http://justjournalism.com/the-wire/times-highlights-lse-middle-east-hypocrisy/‘Sir Howard defended the LSE’s new Middle East Centre, half of whose board support an academic boycott of Israel. “The biggest donor to the School in the past year is George Soros, who of course is of Jewish origin. We operate, I believe, a very balanced view.”’
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