The UCU (the academics' union) is now trying to change the definition of anti-Semitism in order to maintain a policy which discriminates against Jews, without having to acknowledge that it is indeed discriminatory. The policy in question is the proposed boycott of Israel: the UCU singles out Israel, and Israel alone, for special condemnation and punitive treatment. The Union has form in this matter: I resigned from it three years ago when it displayed that same intense desire to select Israel, and no other country in the world, for boycott, even in the face of legal advice that such a practice would fall foul of anti-discrimination law in this country. Now it is so determined to maintain its stance, and so cocksure about its own moral and political superiority, that its Executive proposes to reject the EU definition of anti-Semitism, since according to that definition the UCU's singular and selective hostility to Israel may indeed be anti-Semitic.
Those of us who took part in some of the debates about Israel on the Union activists' list will recall with misery the readiness of people on that list to compare Israel to the Nazis, to claim that Gaza was equivalent to the Warsaw ghetto, to denounce Israel as an apartheid state, and to praise boycotters' sterling courage in bravely ignoring the worries of Jewish UCU members who felt that we were seeing a resurgence of anti-Semitism under the thin disguise of an anti-Zionist figleaf. Such worries were standardly discredited by claiming that they were merely dishonest attempts to distract attention from Israel's crimes. This discrediting manoeuvre doesn't seem to have been entirely successful, since the UCU now feels the need to rebut charges of anti-Semitism by definitional fiat: if a definition of racism shows up our practices as racist, then... change the definition! Words mean whatever we want them to mean, whatever we say they mean. You might think that academics would be able to find a better political role model than Humpty-Dumpty, but they're under a hard drive here: if the UCU were to accept that singling out the world's only Jewish state for uniquely hostile treatment, or spreading innuendos about the sinister global power of its supporters, or telling lies about it being a practitioner of apartheid, or making a disgusting equivalence between Zionists and Nazis – if the Union were to accept that all or even any of these activities might be anti-Semitic practices, then some influential members of the UCU might show up as endorsing anti-Semitism. But that would be intolerable - better to announce that the word 'anti-Semitism' needs to be given a different definition.
This Orwellian resolution of political disputes by way of linguistic fiat is particularly contemptible in an academics' union, since academics are supposed to have some knowledge of how argument works, and how intellectually empty it is to support an argument by distorting the meanings of the terms you use. (It's not of course politically empty, and the UCU's vicious example has certainly strengthened some of those who want to see the Jewish state destroyed.) The UCU doesn't offer any alternative account of anti-Semitism for us to use, and this is not accidental: central to definitions of any kind of racism are core concerns about unequal treatment which disadvantages members of the disfavoured race, and the deployment of hostile stereotypes about them. Since this is exactly what the UCU does to Israel and its supporters, and indeed longs to do more of, it will be hard put to find a way of defining anti-Semitism which will let it off the racist hook. Perhaps this is why it has prudently kept quiet on the matter of an alternative definition. We are just supposed to take on trust the claim that a Union which wants to boycott the only Jewish state in the world, and doesn't want to boycott anywhere else, isn't and can't be anti-Semitic.
This form of anti-Semitism would, like all other forms of that oldest of prejudices, be funny if it weren't frightening, if it weren't another little nail in the coffin of Jewish feelings of security and equality. What is to be done? There is nothing to do but try to fight against it, with or without much hope of success. But that fight can take a variety of forms. When I resigned from the UCU back in 2008 I fully understood why some of my colleagues, Jewish and non-Jewish, preferred to remain in the union, with a view to fighting for change from within. I wasn't very optimistic about their chances, but I respected, and still respect, their decision to keep trying. But things look much bleaker for anti-racism in the UCU now. It's no longer plausible to suppose that the Union will feel the need to change its discriminatory propensities, however strong the arguments against it are. It isn't only the spectacle of the boycott obsessives in the Union leadership which forms a basis for that pessimistic conclusion. It's also the sight of the majority of union members, who I am quite sure have no interest in boycotting Israel and who would vote against doing so by a huge majority if they were ever given the chance, being nonetheless content to remain silent as their leaders dance the Union down the well-paved path to institutionalized anti-Semitism. They don't feel moved to complain; they're prepared to put up with their Union embracing discrimination against one, and only one, ethnic minority. Jews aren't treated as equals in a Union whose leadership wants to act in ways which have an unequal and damaging impact on its Jewish members, while denying that any such unequal impact exists, and dismissing as dishonest the unease and alarm felt by many Jews in the Union. The leadership can't bring itself to acknowledge even the possibility of anti-Jewish racism in its ranks; and the rest of the Union membership by and large simply doesn't care. (See the final paragraph of this earlier normblog post.)
(There are some shining exceptions to this monumental unconcern – Union members who have given their time and energy, sometimes to an extent which has damaged them, in order to combat these vile tendencies in the Union. But unfortunately there aren't very many of them, and they haven't succeeded either in altering the behaviour of the leadership or in galvanizing the membership to resist the leadership's obsessions. Nonetheless they should be recognized and honoured for their efforts, as should others making similar efforts from outside the Union's ranks.)
Academics, like other people, need a union to defend them in these hard times. You can't blame people for wanting to remain in the Union to protect their own interests. But now the price for doing so is collusion with practices which discriminate against Jews; collusion with the denial that such discrimination is taking place; collusion with the claim that practices which would be racist if they targeted other ethnic minorities aren't racist when they target Jews. Alone among the many forms of racism, anti-Semitism is the one whose name mustn't be spoken within the portals of the UCU. Its very existence must be denied; it is, we might say, the Jew among racisms, which must be cast out from the circle of academic concern so that Israel may continue to be hated in peace and comfort, without any tiresome objections to disturb that hatred's steady swell.
Continued membership of the UCU now involves complicity with this exercise in denial. It is appalling that the Union has put its members in the position of having to forego Union protection or collude with Union discrimination. Like many others, I always believed that people had a duty to join their union and to support it; but this belief rested on a prior assumption that unions wouldn't discriminate against their members. That assumption is no longer a reliable one where the Jewish members of the UCU are concerned. It's increasingly evident that this institution is one in which Jewish concerns about racism, unlike all other concerns about racism, are dismissed as unimportant, with the Jews who have these concerns being derided as dishonest and manipulative. It's time for Jews who are unwilling to collude with this treatment, unwilling to accept the role of lower-class citizen which the Union is scripting for them, to leave the Union. (Eve Garrard)