This week, two Israeli colleagues and I were due to appear at the union to participate in an important debate on the one-state solution in Israel-Palestine. Also invited was the American Jewish scholar and outspoken critic of Israel, Norman Finkelstein. At the last minute, however, the union withdrew its invitation to him, apparently intimidated by threats from various pro-Israel groups.

Harvard Jewish lawyer and indefatigable defender of Israel, Alan Dershowitz, attacked the topic of the debate as well as the Oxford Union itself. In an article headlined “Oxford Union is dead”, he accused it of having become “a propaganda platform for extremist views”

In solidarity with Finkelstein

three of us on the “one state” side - myself, Avi Shlaim, of St Anthony’s College, Oxford, and the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe - decided to withdraw from the debate.

Britain is different, naively innocent in the face of US-style assaults on its scholars and institutions.

Such activities are familiar in the US