IN the light of the university’s anti democratic decision to cancel a conference debating the legitimacy of the state of Israel, I wish to withdraw from the Southampton University’s Alumni Association.

As someone proud of her Jewish heritage, I, like so many people of diverse persuasions and faiths across the world, have been dismayed and outraged at the Israeli bombing of Gaza last summer which killed well over 2,000 men, women and children, and destroyed hundreds of homes, hospitals and schools.

I am acutely aware that Israel was founded on the displacement and diaspora of six million Arabic peoples, that since 1948 it has carried out the colonisation and brutal occupation of almost all Palestinian lands.

Its expanding illegal settlements are condemned in international courts and forums.

Its recently reelected leader Benjamin Netanyahu, openly celebrates a racist and apartheid agenda and rubbishes the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a functioning state and homeland.

The Vice Chancellor and senior executive of Southampton University have been swayed by threats of demonstrations and disruption and chosen to deny a platform for the debate of past and present realities in Israel and what is left of Palestine.

As far as I am concerned this makes the university complicit in the silencing of free speech and the right critically and soberly to assess the state of Israel, its history and its responsibility for the parlous situation in Gaza, the West Bank and the Middle East.

DR PAULA JAMES, Senior Lecturer, Classical Studies, Open University, ex alumna of Southampton University (1977-1985), Southampton resident, 1950-1990.