By Lowkey
Ironically, Miller’s book, “Bad News for Labour: Anti-Semitism, the Party and Public Belief,” detailed how bogus charges of anti-Semitism were weaponized against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in order to defame and destroy him.
Instead of simply stopping its human rights abuses, the Israeli government has built an extensive and sophisticated public relations network across the West in order to protect itself from criticism.
Today, Lowkey speaks to one of the latest victims of that smear campaign, Professor David Miller. A prominent critic of the state of Israel’s policies, Miller was recently sacked from his position as Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol, after a pressure campaign involving Zionist student groups and even members of parliament, who accused him of “inciting hatred against Jewish students.”
Miller, a graduate of the University of Glasgow Media Group, was appointed to his position at Bristol University in 2018. He also held positions at the University of Strathclyde from 2004 until 2011 and the University of Bath from 2011 until 2018.
Miller is the creator of the websites SpinWatch and Powerbase, both of which are dedicated to revealing networks of influence and power in Western society. Much of his academic work revolved around Islamophobia in the post-9/11 era. Miller maintained that Zionist organizations were one source of anti-Muslim bigotry, an accusation that put him on a collision course with those groups.
The final blow came late last month, as the university, under enormous external pressure, sacked Miller, citing his comments that certain Jewish students were being used as “pawns of Israel.”
Miller’s case has drawn considerable attention from those who see it as a harbinger of things to come. An open letter to Bristol University defending him as an “eminent scholar” was signed by hundreds of academics and public intellectuals — including prominent Jewish public intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Norman Finkelstein and Illan Pappe, who described him as a trailblazer “exposing the role that powerful actors and well-resourced, co-ordinated networks play in manipulating and stage-managing public debates, including on racism.”
Miller described the disciplinary procedure as “a shambolic process that seems to have been vetted by external actors,” adding that, “Israel’s assets in the U.K. have been emboldened by the university collaborating with them to shut down teaching about Islamophobia. The University of Bristol is no longer safe for Muslim, Arab or Palestinian students.”
Miller is far from the first academic to be targeted in such a manner, and it is unlikely that he will be the last. Ironically, Miller’s book, “Bad News for Labour: Anti-Semitism, the Party and Public Belief,” detailed how bogus charges of anti-Semitism were weaponized against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in order to defame and destroy him. Just such an occurrence appears to have happened in his case as well.
For all the talk of cancel culture, it is highly unlikely that Miller’s case will be taken up by the usual suspects who pontificate about the increasingly stifling atmosphere on university campuses.
Join us as Lowkey and Miller discuss his work, his dismissal, and the network of power Israel has built in the West.
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