Statement: LSE Israel Society should not
be allowed ban Abdel Bari Atwan from speaking on campus.
The highly respected author and editor-in-chief
of the Arabic independent newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, Abdel
Bari Atwan, accepted an invitation from the London School of Economics
(LSE) Palestine Society to address an open meeting on Friday 3 December
2010. The event's organizers were dismayed when members of the LSE
Israel Society called on the Students' Union to ban Atwan from speaking,
claiming that he is 'racist'.
The Israel society students cited defamatory
allegations about Atwan posted on Wikipedia which reference MEMRI
as their source (via the Jerusalem Post and the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency).
MEMRI is not an acceptable source of news and
information. As former Middle East editor of the Guardian, Brian Whittaker,
put it: MEMRI is "basically a propaganda machine."
[http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/15069/135/]
MEMRI was founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon,
formerly a high-ranking officer in the Intelligence Branch of the
Israel Defence Forces, and Israeli-born Meyrav Wurmser, an extreme
rightwing neoconservative now affiliated with the Hudson Institute.
"I did not say any of the things listed
on the Wikipedia site," says Atwan. "They are false allegations,
part of a smear campaign against me".
Atwan has lectured at the world's top universities
- including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Boston and Queensland, Australia.
He is also a regular guest at the BBC and Sky News. In his memoir
A Country of Words he advocates a one-state solution in which
Jews and Arabs would live peaceably together.
It would be a regrettable thing indeed if Israeli
students, rather than engaging in a proper debate, are able to silence
one of the few voices that speaks for the Palestinians.
It is not without irony that Atwan's talk is
entitled 'How much influence does the Zionist lobby exert in the US
and UK?'.
Details of the meeting:
Talk: How much influence does the Zionist Lobby
exert on US & UK Foreign Policy?
Date: Monday 6th December
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Clement House, D502