Academic Response Against Racism and Anti-Semitism in Europe

Academic Response Against Racism and Anti-Semitism in Europe is an obscure organisation which appeared briefly in 2002/3 in reponse to the proposed academic boycott of Israel proposed by Steven Rose and Hilary Rose.

The organisation is associated with Eric Moonman the former MP and president of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. the organisation appears to have no website, no known other members and appears to be defunct. It was quoted in the Manchester Evening News in 2002 on the Mona Baker case:

UMIST chiefs have launched an investigation into claims that two translators were sacked for being Israeli. Prof Mona Baker is alleged to have removed the academics who worked on her private journals because of the 'current situation' in the Middle East. Prof Baker runs the publications independently but UMIST chiefs have faced calls for her to be suspended from her university post as director of translation and cultural studies. The university has decided to launch an investigation, even though the translators, Dr Miriam Schlesinger and Prof Gideon Toury, were not UMIST employees. Prof Baker has not been on campus at the university for more than two weeks.

A UMIST spokesman said: "We regret the decision she has taken and we don't think it's the right decision. We believe it is unacceptable to discriminate against people because of their nationality, race or religion." Among those to have called on the university to act is the Academic Response Against Racism and Anti-Semitism in Europe (ARARE).

UMIST graduate, former MP and ARARE member Eric Moonman is among those calling for the university to lead an inquiry. Mr Moonman said: "The dismissal of two Israelis by a professor raises serious questions of academic freedom."

The only other mention of the organisation on the Lexis-Nexis database is a letter in the Times from Moonman from late 2003, by which time he iwas listed as the 'chair' of the organisation:

Sir, Oxford University is to be complimented on its handling of a most sensitive issue when a member of staff, Professor Andrew Wilkie, rejected an Israeli postgraduate student on the ground of his nationality (report, October 28).

A two-months' suspension may, by itself, not be significant, but clearly the inquiry took into account Professor Wilkie's substantial apology. In the case of Professor Mona Baker (letters, July 10, 13 and 17, 2002), to which your report also refers, no apology seems to have been offered.

Oxford University has also promised to look at its staff training programmes to see whether training in the area of equality and diversity can be improved.

Nevertheless, the issues of discrimination are most serious and the Wilkie case provides a word of caution to others in the academic and professional world who deliberately draw lines of exclusion against a single group of people because of their nationality, religion or colour.

Yours faithfully, ERIC MOONMAN (Chair, Academic Response Against Racism and Anti-Semitism in Europe), 1 Beacon Hill, N7 9LY.