When: Monday, June 26, 2023, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PMWhere: Room 313, Third Floor, School of Law Queen Mary University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS
The International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) is hosting a book launch on 'Friends of Israel and the Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity' with author, Hil Aked at the School of Law.
Hil Aked is a writer, investigative researcher and activist with a background in political sociology whose work has appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Sky News and Al Jazeera, as well as volumes from Pluto Press and Zed Books/Bloomsbury.
Alia Malak is a Steering Committee member of the Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), and has been active in the UK Palestine solidarity movement for a number of years.
Neve Gordon is a Professor of Human Rights in the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London and an officer in the British Society for Middle East Society. He is the author of Israel’s Occupation (2008), The Human Right to Dominate (2015) and Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire.
Palestine solidarity activism globally, especially the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is facing a major pro-Israel backlash. Hil Aked's new book Friends of Israel: the Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity (Verso, 2023) tells the story of this repression in Britain with detail and nuance, explaining the role of the Israeli and British governments and the Zionist movement. By pushing back against efforts to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism and demystifying the actors defending Israeli apartheid, it carves out a space for an anti-racist discussion about the pro-Israel networks standing in the way of Palestine solidarity, situating them as part of the long history of British complicity in Israeli apartheid.