Heil Britannia! by Charlotte West
Charlotte West | 30.06.2003 18:54 | Analysis | London | Oxford
On Monday, June 23, at 9:58 am, professor Wilkie refused Israeli Amit Duvshani’s PhD application to study with him at Oxford University.
Pathologist Andrew Wilkie has been Professor of Genetics at Oxford since 2000. His research, notes Oxford Blueprint, “has focused on the developmental genetics of skill and limb malformations, caused by alterations (mutations) in genes involved in the normal processes of embryonic development (working) closely with the Department of Plastic Surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary where many affected children are treated.”
On Monday, June 23, at 9:58 am, professor Wilkie refused Israeli Amit Duvshani’s PhD application to study with him at Oxford University. Here is the letter of refusal:
“Dear Amit Duvshani,
“Thank you for contacting me, but I don´t think this would work. I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because the (the Palestinians) wish to live in their own country.
“I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware, I am not the only UK scientist with these views but I´m sure you will find another suitable lab if you look around.
“Yours sincerely,
Andrew Wilkie
Nuffield Professor of Pathology,
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine,
The John Radcliffe, Headington,
Oxford OX3 9DS, UK.”
Within hours it was seen around the world and, as Naomi Ragen noted in her scathing letter to him, “Ah the wonders of the internet. No longer can closet anti-Semites ply their trade under the cover of darkness. Now the entire world knows who you are, as your disgusting bias in dealing with Amit Duvshani is now out there for all to see.”
Letters poured in to Oxford, not just by members of the general public, but by Wilkie’s own international colleagues, such as Morris Givner, Ph.D., FCACB, FCIC, Professor of Pathology (Ret.) and Associate Professor of Medicine (Ret.), Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., and Bernard Loev PhD of Medford New Jersey, author of 100 scientific publications and book chapters in the field of medicinal chemistry, holder of 198 patents and discoverer of anti-hypertensive drug Nifedipine (Procardia). Prof. Loev has been Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical R&D for several of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, done research with several Nobel prize winners, and lectured in universities all over the world.
By Friday, June 27, a spokesperson for the University of Oxford issued a statement:
“Our staff may hold strongly felt personal opinions. Freedom of expression is a fundamental tenet of University life, but under no circumstances are we prepared to accept or condone conduct that appears to, or does, discriminate against anyone on grounds of ethnicity or nationality, whether directly or indirectly. This candidate is entitled to submit an application and to have it dealt with fairly according to our normal criteria.
“Professor Wilkie has issued a personal apology regarding remarks he made by email to an applicant for a research degree at Oxford. An immediate and thorough investigation of this matter is now being carried out in accordance with the University’s procedures and a report will be presented to the Vice-Chancellor next week.”
This tight-lipped apology by Professor Wilkie followed:
“I recognise and apologise for any distress caused by my e mail of 23 June and the wholly inappropriate expression of my personal opinions in that document. I was not speaking on behalf of Oxford University or any of its constituent parts. I entirely accept the University of Oxford’s Equal Opportunities and Race Equality policies.”
‘L’affair Wilkie’ took place barely a week after British legislator Oona King, London East representative of the governing Labour Party, returned from her brief trip to Gaza to proclaim that conditions there were “the same in nature but not extent” as Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto, where Jews were corralled and oppressed by Adolf Hitler´s Nazis. King also acknowledged that it was different in “intent”.
What does that mean, the same in nature but not extent or intent? What made the Warsaw ghetto unique in nature was exactly the extent and the intent. The extent of the persecution and the intent to starve the inhabitants. They even had a name for the walking dead so thin and drawn that everyone knew their deaths were hours away - they were called musselmen. Do they have musselmen in Gaza? My father was so starved he and his friends tried to grow potatoes between the cracks of the sidewalk. Is anyone growing potatoes in the cracks of the sidewalks in Gaza? To get some sustenance he would throw something of value over the wall and on a good day back would come a brick of butter. Is anyone throwing away their belongings in Gaza in the hopes that a brick of butter will come hurtling back?
But even more important than how the Jews were treated, is the issue of what the Jews did to incur that treatment. Nothing. How many Polish babies had the Jews of Warsaw shot dead on sight? None. How many Polish children had the Jews of Warsaw mass-murdered in their beds, their buses, their schools, their churches or while they were celebrating holiday rituals? None. Were the Jews of Warsaw bombing Polish commercial enterprises, setting downtown squares ablaze, mass-murdering, maiming, and terrifying the Polish people, shooting at them as they drove by on their way to church and a family dinner, and deliberately damaging tourism, immigration, trade, and the entire economy? No. Were the Jews of Warsaw who had lived there six centuries demanding their own country in Poland? No. Were the Jews of Warsaw waiting until the Poles gathered for a wedding to throw a Molotov cocktail into the room? No. Were the Jews of Warsaw trying to stone the Poles to death? No. Lynching school kids hiking? No. Stealing their cars? No. Smuggling arms shipments? No. In short, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto were victims. They were not demanding anything of the Poles, they were not harming the Poles, nor were they trying to take their lives or ruin their economy.
And exactly how many offers of a homeland had the Jews refused before being corralled? None.
The residents of Gaza have refused homeland offers many times, and are engaging in all of the above, smuggling in arms by tunnels and by sea and then using them to mass-murder Israelis completely at random. They hide behind the skirts of ‘collective punishment’ when they are inconvenienced by a roadblock, yet they mass-murder people, taking forever the lives of those whose names they don’t even know. Not all Germans were Nazis, just like not all Gaza Arabs are terrorists. But they are supporting them, just as the German people did. The residents of Gaza, in harboring terrorists, indeed, making heroes of them, have chosen their own destiny and they have chosen a path that requires they be restrained. So they are being restrained just as the Allies had to restrain the Nazis.
And Oona King is committing theft - trying to steal the pity and outrage rightly reserved for victims of extreme conditions, for people that are neither victims, nor by her own admission, do their conditions match the extreme ones with which she has chosen to compare them. In other words, the analogy doesn’t fit at all. So why is she attempting to “sell” this particular analogy? Is it because Oona King is the same “in nature if not extent or intent” as Adolph Hitler’s Nazi master of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels? Comparing Oona King to Joseph Goebbels seems ludicrous? It is. Counterproductive? It is. It is almost as ludicrous and counterproductive as Oona King’s comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. But the effect is infinitely less dangerous - because Oona King is slandering an entire people, not just an individual.
And we immediately see the effect of such dangerous Oona King propaganda in Britain - a society feeling awfully free and easy about indulging in ludicrous, counterproductive behavior against any Israeli, sight unseen, as evidenced barely a week later when the whole world witnessed Dr. Wilkie casually fling a similarly flawed Nazi analogy at Amit Duvshani, and deny him access to his chosen career path, Oxford, because of it. Would Dr. Andrew Wilkie mind if, by the same hyperbole, qualifying, and force fitting, one were to compare him to Dr. Josef Mengele - in nature, if not extent or intent - and then inform him that because of it, his services are no longer needed at Oxford, however he will surely find another suitable lab if he looks around?
--------------------------------------------------------
Charlotte West can be reached at
CharlotteWest@hotmail.com.
On Monday, June 23, at 9:58 am, professor Wilkie refused Israeli Amit Duvshani’s PhD application to study with him at Oxford University. Here is the letter of refusal:
“Dear Amit Duvshani,
“Thank you for contacting me, but I don´t think this would work. I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because the (the Palestinians) wish to live in their own country.
“I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware, I am not the only UK scientist with these views but I´m sure you will find another suitable lab if you look around.
“Yours sincerely,
Andrew Wilkie
Nuffield Professor of Pathology,
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine,
The John Radcliffe, Headington,
Oxford OX3 9DS, UK.”
Within hours it was seen around the world and, as Naomi Ragen noted in her scathing letter to him, “Ah the wonders of the internet. No longer can closet anti-Semites ply their trade under the cover of darkness. Now the entire world knows who you are, as your disgusting bias in dealing with Amit Duvshani is now out there for all to see.”
Letters poured in to Oxford, not just by members of the general public, but by Wilkie’s own international colleagues, such as Morris Givner, Ph.D., FCACB, FCIC, Professor of Pathology (Ret.) and Associate Professor of Medicine (Ret.), Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., and Bernard Loev PhD of Medford New Jersey, author of 100 scientific publications and book chapters in the field of medicinal chemistry, holder of 198 patents and discoverer of anti-hypertensive drug Nifedipine (Procardia). Prof. Loev has been Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical R&D for several of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, done research with several Nobel prize winners, and lectured in universities all over the world.
By Friday, June 27, a spokesperson for the University of Oxford issued a statement:
“Our staff may hold strongly felt personal opinions. Freedom of expression is a fundamental tenet of University life, but under no circumstances are we prepared to accept or condone conduct that appears to, or does, discriminate against anyone on grounds of ethnicity or nationality, whether directly or indirectly. This candidate is entitled to submit an application and to have it dealt with fairly according to our normal criteria.
“Professor Wilkie has issued a personal apology regarding remarks he made by email to an applicant for a research degree at Oxford. An immediate and thorough investigation of this matter is now being carried out in accordance with the University’s procedures and a report will be presented to the Vice-Chancellor next week.”
This tight-lipped apology by Professor Wilkie followed:
“I recognise and apologise for any distress caused by my e mail of 23 June and the wholly inappropriate expression of my personal opinions in that document. I was not speaking on behalf of Oxford University or any of its constituent parts. I entirely accept the University of Oxford’s Equal Opportunities and Race Equality policies.”
‘L’affair Wilkie’ took place barely a week after British legislator Oona King, London East representative of the governing Labour Party, returned from her brief trip to Gaza to proclaim that conditions there were “the same in nature but not extent” as Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto, where Jews were corralled and oppressed by Adolf Hitler´s Nazis. King also acknowledged that it was different in “intent”.
What does that mean, the same in nature but not extent or intent? What made the Warsaw ghetto unique in nature was exactly the extent and the intent. The extent of the persecution and the intent to starve the inhabitants. They even had a name for the walking dead so thin and drawn that everyone knew their deaths were hours away - they were called musselmen. Do they have musselmen in Gaza? My father was so starved he and his friends tried to grow potatoes between the cracks of the sidewalk. Is anyone growing potatoes in the cracks of the sidewalks in Gaza? To get some sustenance he would throw something of value over the wall and on a good day back would come a brick of butter. Is anyone throwing away their belongings in Gaza in the hopes that a brick of butter will come hurtling back?
But even more important than how the Jews were treated, is the issue of what the Jews did to incur that treatment. Nothing. How many Polish babies had the Jews of Warsaw shot dead on sight? None. How many Polish children had the Jews of Warsaw mass-murdered in their beds, their buses, their schools, their churches or while they were celebrating holiday rituals? None. Were the Jews of Warsaw bombing Polish commercial enterprises, setting downtown squares ablaze, mass-murdering, maiming, and terrifying the Polish people, shooting at them as they drove by on their way to church and a family dinner, and deliberately damaging tourism, immigration, trade, and the entire economy? No. Were the Jews of Warsaw who had lived there six centuries demanding their own country in Poland? No. Were the Jews of Warsaw waiting until the Poles gathered for a wedding to throw a Molotov cocktail into the room? No. Were the Jews of Warsaw trying to stone the Poles to death? No. Lynching school kids hiking? No. Stealing their cars? No. Smuggling arms shipments? No. In short, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto were victims. They were not demanding anything of the Poles, they were not harming the Poles, nor were they trying to take their lives or ruin their economy.
And exactly how many offers of a homeland had the Jews refused before being corralled? None.
The residents of Gaza have refused homeland offers many times, and are engaging in all of the above, smuggling in arms by tunnels and by sea and then using them to mass-murder Israelis completely at random. They hide behind the skirts of ‘collective punishment’ when they are inconvenienced by a roadblock, yet they mass-murder people, taking forever the lives of those whose names they don’t even know. Not all Germans were Nazis, just like not all Gaza Arabs are terrorists. But they are supporting them, just as the German people did. The residents of Gaza, in harboring terrorists, indeed, making heroes of them, have chosen their own destiny and they have chosen a path that requires they be restrained. So they are being restrained just as the Allies had to restrain the Nazis.
And Oona King is committing theft - trying to steal the pity and outrage rightly reserved for victims of extreme conditions, for people that are neither victims, nor by her own admission, do their conditions match the extreme ones with which she has chosen to compare them. In other words, the analogy doesn’t fit at all. So why is she attempting to “sell” this particular analogy? Is it because Oona King is the same “in nature if not extent or intent” as Adolph Hitler’s Nazi master of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels? Comparing Oona King to Joseph Goebbels seems ludicrous? It is. Counterproductive? It is. It is almost as ludicrous and counterproductive as Oona King’s comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. But the effect is infinitely less dangerous - because Oona King is slandering an entire people, not just an individual.
And we immediately see the effect of such dangerous Oona King propaganda in Britain - a society feeling awfully free and easy about indulging in ludicrous, counterproductive behavior against any Israeli, sight unseen, as evidenced barely a week later when the whole world witnessed Dr. Wilkie casually fling a similarly flawed Nazi analogy at Amit Duvshani, and deny him access to his chosen career path, Oxford, because of it. Would Dr. Andrew Wilkie mind if, by the same hyperbole, qualifying, and force fitting, one were to compare him to Dr. Josef Mengele - in nature, if not extent or intent - and then inform him that because of it, his services are no longer needed at Oxford, however he will surely find another suitable lab if he looks around?
--------------------------------------------------------
Charlotte West can be reached at
CharlotteWest@hotmail.com.
Charlotte West
