More than 2,000 people have signed a petition protesting against the University of Southampton for planning to host a conference questioning Israel's legitimacy.

Advocacy group Academic Friends of Israel launched a petition this week urging the university to move the three-day event, due to take place next month, away from the campus.

The group also said it was backing plans by Sussex Friends of Israel to protest outside the conference, which is titled "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism" and will include anti-Zionist speakers.

A Zionist Federation petition, launched earlier this month and calling for the event to be cancelled, has now been signed by 5,000 people.

The Parkes Institute, the Jewish studies centre that is part of the university, has rejected a claim that it has removed the conference organiser, Israeli professor Oren Ben-Dor, from its management committee.

Petitions against Southampton University have gained over 7,000 signatures

Academic Friends of Israel said on Monday that Prof Ben-Dor had been dropped.

But the institute's director, Professor Joachim Schlör, said: "His membership died automatically a few years ago when the law faculty didn't nominate him again."

It was possible that Prof Ben-Dor had remained listed on the institute's website and then been removed in a systematic update of the site, he said.

The university has refused to elaborate on the claim by the Board of Deputies president, Vivian Wineman, that "it was reviewing its position", which was issued after his meeting with vice-chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam last week.

Prof Nutbeam, who is due to stand down in October, declined a request for comment this week, with the university issuing a statement that it was "reviewing arrangements associated with the conference on an ongoing basis".

● Sussex University student union held a referendum this week on a commercial, cultural and academic boycott of Israel.