David Miller
Source: Al Mayadeen English
A University of Bristol event appears to be in jeopardy after the only Muslim speaker withdraws.
A conference on that topic is clearly a matter of political controversy in the middle of a genocide. But the conference announcement assures us (in bold) that
PLEASE NOTE: This conference is an educational event, not a political one. We do not wish for the conference to be perceived as pushing a particular agenda, but rather serving as an educational platform to learn about antisemitism.
Of course, anyone who has paid more than cursory attention to those matters knows that this is an attempt by the University of Bristol, no doubt cleared by the highest authority, to put on a genocide denial event under the pretended rubric of understanding prejudice against the Jews. This is as educational as an event put on by a German university department in the 1930s, at which most of the speakers are Nazis or Nazi party apologists and where there is one Communist and one Jew speaking as cover for the agenda.
When was the last university-sponsored event titled anything like ‘Confronting Islamophobia’, co-sponsored by BRISoc (Bristol Islamic Society) or the AbSoc (Bristol Ahlulbayt Islamic Society)? To answer the question is to answer it: Never. The University even went out of its way to criticise BRISoc after it complained about the alleged Islamophobia of a member of the Law department at Bristol.
Those who want to ‘confront’ antisemitism. We can tell a little of the conference agenda by looking at who is platformed more than once. This is both Clive Lawton and Canon Guy Wilkinson in the first panel. Let’s look at their background and then go on to look at the other advertised speakers.
Session 1
Clive Lawton OBE. Lawton is, according to his own account, someone who has a decades-long involvement in racist Zionist organisations
- Board of Deputies, London, England, executive director of education and community relations departments, 1979-84; While at the BoD he wrote several books and handbooks for them. The BoD has been Zionist since the 1940s, and in its 2020 annual report admitted to close collaboration with multiple entities of the Zionist regime. It is stated it had a “close working relationship with the Embassy of Israel” and strong links to "Israel’s" semi-covert (but since shut) ministry of strategic affairs, as well as to the Israeli military spokesperson’s office.
- He was headmaster at the King David High School, Liverpool, England, 1984-91; This is an openly Zionist school which indoctrinates and radicalises its pupils to believe in the racist notion that they have a ‘birthright’ to steal Palestinian land. Unfortunately most Jewish schools appear to follow the same behaviour.
- Chief Executive Jewish Continuity, 1993-96; This is a project of the United Jewish Israel Appeal, the largest fundraiser for Zionism in the UK, which both funds genocidal activities in occupied Palestine and encourages radicalisation in the UK by funding scores of Zionist groups including almost all Zionist youth groups. It appears to be a vehicle for the genocidal fantasies of Keith Black, whose name is listed as a person with significant control. Black and his family have used the fortune they have extracted from the outdoor clothing industry to funnel funds to the genocidal Zionist military.
- CEO, Commonwealth Jewish Council, which features as ‘executive trustees’ the famously ‘ethical lobbyist’ who was caught in New Labour’s first lobby scandal, Jon Mendelsohn. He is involved in a plethora of Zionist normalisation and front groups. and the Zionist normaliser Laura Marks who runs a series of Zionist infiltration and normalisation projects.
- UJIA Fellow in Jewish Education and Community Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). As noted above the UJIA is the largest fundraiser of the UK Zionist movement.
- Scholar-in-residence at JW3, the Zionist-run ‘Jewish’ community centre. This was the venue for the recent conference (in October 2024) addressed by former Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, Ehud Olmert, which attracted an impromptu protest outside . Just days later, the Embassy of the Zionist regime put on a briefing at JW3 with the war criminal former Chief of Staff of the occupation forces and former Head of the Intelligence Directorate Ltn Gen Aviv Kohavi.
Given this history of involvement with genocidal and racist Zonist groups it is alarming to say the least that he has also been ‘an independent tribunal Chair for the NHS and a magistrate on the Bristol Bench.’
Canon Guy Wilkinson CBE. Wilkinson has a history of involvement in interfaith activities which are vehicles both for the British state and for Zionist infiltration and attempts at normalisation of the Zionist entity. For example:
- He was co-chair of the Faiths Forum for London, in 2012-13. The forum has received over £100,000 from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. It is led by Mustafa Field, the British state’s most prominent Shia Muslim asset. The group is based, along with a whole host of other Zionist normalisation groups, in Collaboration House, in what it calls ‘buzzy Fitzrovia’ a building owned and run by the Ostro Fayre Share Foundation, the family foundation of Maurice Ostro, a Zionist businessman.
- Trustee of the Near Neighbours charity and its Catalyst programme. Its role as a Zionist normalisation project can be seen from the involvement of two key members of its ‘Faiths Advisory Panel’: Qari Asim, one of the British state's favourite Muslim assets, and Dan Bacall the Director of External Affairs for the Office of the Chief Rabbi, the genocidal Ephraim Mirvis.
Gene Feder. Feder was added late to the bill on Sunday, March 16. He is a Bristol University academic in public health with a record of publication on Palestinians living under Zionist occupation such as this recent one. Feder also has a long record of supporting Palestinian rights. In the period of the genocide, he has for example signed a letter supporting the Bristol student encampment in solidarity with Gaza (which notably refers to the ‘genocide’), signed a ‘Jewish statement against police ban on Palestine protest’, hosted by the Stop the War Coalition, and a statement opposing the BBC censorship of a film on Gaza.
It is not known whether the organisers thought to add his name after getting preliminary negative feedback, or if perhaps Feder was suggested to them by a staff member or members who were concerned about the manifestly ideological nature of the panel, or perhaps both. Certainly, he will obviously be used as a shield in case of any further questions being asked about the genocide apologia evident in the event. It is notable that by Thursday, March 20, Feder’s name had been moved up the agenda from third to first place on the bill.
Session 2
Jonah Levy. Levy who started at Bristol University in September 2023 is the current president of the Bristol JSoc (Jewish Society) since early 2025. which is co-sponsoring the event. As with many of his predecessors, such as Nina Freedman (2019-20), Edward Isaacs (2021-2), Harry Isaacs (2022-3), and Edgar Santos (2023-4), he is a hard core radicalised Zionist.
- He attended JCOSS - the Jewish Community Secondary School in London. This is a school which openly boasts of its ’ Zionist ethos’. It celebrates Israeli ‘independence day’ each year and invites Zionist youth groups into the school to recruit young children to propaganda tours to the Zionist entity. In 2018 for example it stated: "We were also delighted to welcome representatives from all the Zionist youth movements to school to promote their Israel tours."
- Informal Educator, North Western Reform Synagogue - Part-time (Sep 2019-Mar 2024). The North Western Reform Synagogue, commonly known as Alyth, based in North West London is a part of the Movement for Reform Judaism, which, as it states on its website, is "unequivocally Zionist".
- Youth Leader RSY-Netzer (Jun 2022 - Present). RSY-Netzer is the youth movement associated with the Movement for Reform Judaism, which is, as noted above, signed up to the Zionist movement. It is also a member of the Zionist Federation. The function of the Zionist youth movements is not primarily to lobby for ‘Israel’ but to radicalise and groom young Jews to believe in the racist ideology of Zionism and encourage them to take part in the Zionist movement, including by taking a direct role in the genocide in Palestine.
- In the first year of his degree, Levy was also Political Leadership Fellow at the Union of Jewish Students (Nov 2023 - Jun 2024). As is now widely known, the Union of Jewish Students is formally Zionist, being affiliated through the World Union of Jewish Students with the World Zionist Organisation.
- This radicalisation and grooming process no doubt helped him to be appointed as the President of the Bristol JSoc in January 2025. In the specific case of Bristol, there is evidence that the Bristol JSoc is not welcoming to Jewish students who are non or anti-Zionist. Here is one such testimony:
"I am a Jewish former Bristol student … and I am grateful that there is someone teaching this on campus. I was very disappointed during my time at Bristol that – as an American, many miles away from home – I was precluded from participating in Bristol Jewish life because of my political views. I was shocked how the JSoc used a coordinated effort with UJS to block student government BDS motions from being passed in 2015. I remember vividly a Palestine 101 event that the PalSoc, organized which was co-opted by members of the JSoc to “tell both sides of the story” who repeatedly told a classmate of mine from the West Bank that it was 'just a fence.'"
CST (Community Security Trust). The CST is an organisation which claims to oppose racism but which actually runs point for the Zionist regime, collaborates closely with the Mossad, and spends almost all of its efforts in attacking the pro-Palestine movement, Muslims, and the Left. This is intended to defend the Zionist regime for accountability. The CST was created by the convicted fraudster Gerald Ronson and collaborates closely with the police and the Home Office to weaponise ‘anti-semitism’. The CST has in its charitable objects that it is to educate the public about 'extremism'. And yet Ronson has -for more than 50 years- donated to the extremist Jewish supremacist group Chabad. The CST has been largely responsible (along with other Zionist bullying groups) for the bogus statistics which appear to show a huge increase in ‘hate crime’ against the Jews. The CST appears on the programme as an organisation and has not vouchsafed the name of the staff member who will speak (at least not for public consumption). It is afraid of revealing the names of its staff because it is allergic to accountability.
Damien Egan MP. Egan has a record as a genocide apologist, having in the middle of the current genocide taken an all-expenses paid trip with Labour Friends of Israel. It is also not irrelevant to note that his Israeli husband, Yossi Felberbaum, has been connected to the regime’s infamous Unit 8200 signals intelligence unit. It was involved in the pager attack in Lebanon last year (which killed and disfigured thousands, including many children) and in the creation of the vile AI applications such as ‘Where’s daddy’ and also the use of broadcast crying babies to encourage hiding civilians to reveal themselves - so they can be murdered by the occupation forces. Asa Winstanley reported:
In a Facebook posting from 2017, a group called Birthright Israel Excel wrote that Felberbaum had been in the Israeli military for six years. They explained that Felberbaum had played “an important role” acting as one of their liaisons with the Israeli military, “assisting with recruitment of 8200 unit soldiers as Israeli Peers.” Birthright Israel Excel is a 10-week Tel Aviv internship program which recruits Jewish college students from selected universities – mostly in North America and Europe – and links them up with Israeli companies, mostly in the high-tech sector. Their interns are all matched with an “Israeli Peer” to guide them through the program. Judging from their Facebook posting about Felberbaum, however, it seems that at least some of these “peers” are actually Unit 8200 spies.
Session 3 - Interfaith panel
In session 3 - the interfaith panel - we have the return of the two speakers who are on more than once - Lawton and Wilkinson, both of whom are white, one Jewish, and one Christian., They are joined by two others, both of whom are not white, Imam Usman Sohail a Muslim of the Easton Masjid in Bristol, and Javinder Singh, a Sikh active in interfaith activities in Bristol. The fact that the only nonwhite people are relegated to this subsidiary position is telling.
One hopes that they have been involved in this genocide denial event without the full agenda being revealed to them. This would appear to be the case, since by Sunday March 16, it was revealed that Imam Usman Sohail of the Easton Masjid had withdrawn. The reason given, I am told, is that the event clashed with the community Iftar being held in Easton on the same day.
It is plain that the University of Bristol is nervous about this event, which is why the disclaimer cited at the top of this piece was there, and it probably also explains why the logo of the Bristol JSoc was removed from the publicity at some point on Sunday, March 16.
Finally we turn to the organiser of the event.
Kevin Mattison is the contact person for this event and is a recently appointed Lecturer in Jewish Studies. As is self-evidently the case from the content of the event, Mattison is a Zionist. In February, he spoke about his research at the Bristol and West Progressive Jewish Congregation, a Synagogue in Bristol which is part of the Liberal Judaism (UK), which is explicitly signed up to the Zionist movement via its membership of the World Union for Progressive Judaism which is in turn part of the World Zionist Organisation. On its website, it makes clear that "We affirm a love for the Land of Israel and a strong commitment to the State of Israel."
Mattison previously worked in the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin. A 2013 report in the Madison Jewish News states, "Mattison’s assistantship, along with those of two other teaching assistants for Jewish Studies courses, are funded by private gifts to the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, allowing them to both teach and learn." The donors are stated to be private, but we know that amongst the public donors to the centre are people like Cheryl Temkin, who has studied in occupied Jerusalem and is a former employee of the Israeli Ministry of Commerce who has donated to endow a Chair in so-called ‘modern Israel Studies’. Other Zionists who have funded the center include Julie and Peter Weil, whose other ‘philanthropic’ activities include funding Hillel, the Zionist student group on the Wisconsin campus. Unsurprisingly the Weils are also involved in Zionist indoctrination groups such as Connect Israel which takes 30-42 year olds from the US on propaganda trips to the settler colony.
Overall, the claim that this is "not a political" event, nor should it be "perceived as pushing a particular agenda," is clearly risible. The University of Bristol has made a serious mistake in openly allying itself with genocide denial. As hundreds more children are being murdered by the Zionists in occupied Palestine, it is a standing rebuke to all the enlightenment ideas that universities are supposed to hold dear. Not for the first time, the senior management of the university which must have authorised this sorry event should be seen as bringing the university into disrepute.
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