‘Can’t You See He’s Fooled You All?’: An Open Letter to Peter Gabriel et al explaining why Israel is not a ‘Settler Colonial’ society, Professor Alan Johnson, Fathom magazine, November 2021

100 artists including Ken Loach, Mark Rylance and Susan Sarandon have signed an open letter indicting Israel as an illegitimate ‘settler colonial’ society. Fathom editor Alan Johnson sets out the reasons why it isn’t, in the form of an open letter to one of the signatories, his culture hero Peter Gabriel. Dear Peter Gabriel, As…

David Renton, ‘Labour’s Antisemitism crisis: What the Left got wrong and how to learn from it’, Routledge, 2022 – reflection by Philip Mendes, September 2021

Firstly, let me say this is not a conventional book review. It is more so an ongoing critical reflection on what the anti-Zionist Left (i.e. those who reject Israel’s continuing existence as a Jewish state even within the Green Line borders, and instead advocate so-called universalistic solutions which in the current political culture of the…

NTEU wins right to intellectual freedom in Tim Anderson appeal, Green Left, 4 September 2021

A Federal Court decision handed down on August 31 confirmed that University of Sydney staff have a legal right to be protected from disciplinary action when exercising intellectual freedom. The decision resulted from an appeal brought by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and Dr Tim Anderson, a former Political Economy academic, against the University of Sydney. Anderson was sacked…

Tim Anderson’s swastika dismissal case and the use of members money – Media Release – National Tertiary Education Union, 31 August 2021

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) welcomed today’s landmark Federal Court judgment that ruled University of Sydney staff have a legal right to be protected from disciplinary action when exercising intellectual or academic freedom, under the terms of the NTEU collective workplace agreement. The appeal decision found that the University of Sydney collective agreement contains a legally…