Israel is facing an intensifying campaign of delegitimization, demonization and double standards in the country that is responsible for founding it in 1948. According to Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, Britain has become a hotbed of radical anti-Israeli sentiment.

Toward the end of last month, the University and College Union (ucu) in Britain-a trade union of teachers and professors-passed a motion that in effect called for a boycott of Israeli academia. Prof. David Newman of Israel’s Ben-Gurion University is leading a movement against these boycott attempts and has said that the ucu is transforming British universities into hostile environments for both Jewish faculty and Jewish students. Recent cases of discrimination include an Israeli postgraduate who was refused doctoral supervision because he had served in the Israeli army.

The ucu is far from the only British institution engaged in demonizing Israel. The British media-especially the bbc -is denigrating Israel through the application of double standards. According to the Telegraph :

Israel’s military reaction to the attacks it faces is given in-depth, microscopic coverage. Yet the attacks to which Israel is responding are often ignored. Terror attacks, ambushes, suicide bombings, the constant barrage of rockets being fired on Israeli citizens are frequently disregarded.

British academia and media organizations present an almost completely one-sided (and incorrect) view of the Jewish state. The bias is only serving to sway the British populace against a historic ally and national brother. Anti-Zionism has become the latest form of anti-Semitism. For more information on this disturbing trend, read “Holocaust Hypocrisy ” by Brad Macdonald. •