SCOTLAND – The Scottish Jewish academics have called on local universities to divest from Israel, citing weaponization of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

The Scottish Universities Jewish Staff Network – which brings together Jewish staff and researchers in higher education across the country – made the call in an op-ed for Scottish daily The National.

The group said the IHRA definition was being “weaponized” to stifle criticism of Israel amid its genocide in Gaza.

“The Scottish Universities Jewish Staff Network have been advocating against the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, mindful of the risks to academic freedom and pluralism, the bread and butter of liberal civil society,” they wrote.

“Right now, twenty-two months into the Gaza genocide, we can clearly see the disastrous harm of stifling criticism of Israel by the weaponization of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, at times without even adopting it as an official institutional policy.”

“Rather than tackling anti-Semitism as this quasi-legal instrument purports to do, it has created the false equivalence between Jews and Zionism, associating us all, including dissident Israelis, with the horrendous genocide that we unequivocably oppose,” the group added.

Their statement follows the University of Edinburgh’s announcement last month that it would be considering whether to de-adopt the definition and divest from Israeli companies after publishing a report into its historical links to transatlantic slavery and empire.

The report also recommended establishing a Palestine Studies Centre to investigate the legacy of the Balfour Declaration and offering scholarships to Palestinians.

“When one looks into Balfour’s legacy, some of today’s truisms fall apart. The one most concerning for us, as Jewish staff members in Scottish universities, is the conventional wisdom so deeply rooted in our public discourse and institutional frameworks that anti-Zionism is, by default, anti-Semitism,” the group wrote in the op-ed.

They endorsed the report and “reject the implication that Jewish safety is compromised by supporting Palestine.”

“Furthermore, many of us, including Israeli dissidents, vehemently criticize the Israeli occupation, oppression, and genocide of the Palestinian people. And for good reasons, as outlined in this excellent report,” they added.

The group called on universities to: “First, to reject the IHRA definition and rely on existing EDI policies against racism to address anti-Semitism without separate measures. Second, to divest from all organizations which sustain or are linked to the Israeli State. Third, to actively engage with Palestinian scholars and institutions to rebuild Palestinian higher education in the wake of Israeli scholasticide in Gaza.”