Professors plan High Court challenge over Israel conference

The organisers of a scrapped academic conference which had planned to question the legitimacy of Israel are to take their university to court for the second time.

Professors from Southampton University had been given permission from the institution to hold their previously cancelled conference this year if they covered security costs amounting to £24,000.

The conference, titled "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism", was originally due to take place last April, but was cancelled by the university over security concerns.

Professors Oren Ben Dor and Suleiman Sharkh lost a judicial review to overturn the decision in the High Court last year.

According to the Guardian, the professors claim the university has told them the conference can only go ahead if it is reduced from three days to two in length.

They said the university had also demanded the pair pay £23,873 to cover security costs, and arrange extra funding for police if more than 600 protesters demonstrated at the event.

The professors will return to the High Court on April 6 to challenge the university’s conditions.

They have set up a crowd-funding page to finance their legal costs. Their page on website crowdjustice said: “We attempted to re-launch the same conference in April 2016. After a protracted process the University initially changed its stance, but in giving a permission it was on the condition that organisers should pay security costs of nearly £25,000.

“This amount was required for the hire of private security and fencing. This financial demand was based on inflated risk levels (in the absence of any intelligence). The organisers do not have, nor can they have any hope of raising this money.

“Most importantly we believe that as a matter of principle, and in these kinds of conferences that are controversial, it should not fall on the conference organisers to pay the cost of security measures needed to protect their academic freedom and freedom of speech.

“The organisers are now launching a second legal action that challenges this latest decision that amounts to a constructive cancellation of the conference and as such is contrary to the University’s own Code of Practice. It is hoped that both actions will be rolled into one in the April hearing.”

Concerns over the nature of the conference were raised last year by the Board of Deputies and other Jewish organisations. The then Communities Secretary Eric Pickles also spoke out against the plan.