Toufic Haddad is challenging his dismissal from a UK-funded institute in Jerusalem, alleging discrimination and a deliberate attempt to deny him a fair hearing in British courts
A Palestinian-American academic is taking his British employer to court after it attempted to force him to sue the organisation for wrongful dismissal in Israel instead of the UK.
In 2023, the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem fired Toufic Haddad, a leading scholar in Palestine Studies, who was employed as the institute’s director, citing funding cuts from the British Academy.
Haddad believes the CBRL unfairly dismissed him because of political discrimination linked to his scholarly work and public position on Palestine, where he has opposed Israel’s war on Gaza and its ongoing clampdown against Palestinian academics.
He noted that these actions came in the wake of the 7 October attacks, when trustees of the CBRL called on Haddad to “maintain a low profile and not talk to the media”.
Following his dismissal, the CBRL, a UK-registered academic institute publicly funded by the British Academy and British government and based in London, attempted to block Haddad’s unfair dismissal claims by insisting that an Israeli court hear his claim instead of a British one.
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Barrister Franck Magennis, instructed by the European Legal Support Centre, is representing Toufic Haddad, a leading scholar, in challenging his dismissal from a UK-funded institute in Jerusalem, alleging discrimination and an attempt to deny him a fair hearing in British courts.
See coverage on the case here: UK academic body accused of trying to force Palestinian scholar into Israeli court system | Middle East Eye; ‘Anti-Zionist’ academic Toufic Haddad fights to have legal case heard in UK
Haddad is taking his British employer to court, following its attempt to force him to sue the organisation for wrongful dismissal in Israel, instead of the UK. In 2023, Toufic Haddad was dismissed by the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem citing funding cuts from the British Academy. He believes the CBRL unfairly dismissed him because of political discrimination linked to his scholarly work and public position on Palestine, where he has opposed Israel’s war on Gaza and its ongoing clampdown against Palestinian academics.
Franck Magennis practises in public, civil and criminal defence. His work centres on challenging rights breaches by the British and other states, employers and landlords. He has expertise in legal claims connected to Palestinian emancipation from Israeli occupation. Franck conducts research on international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the context of the Palestinian struggle for emancipation. In May to August 2019 he was a research fellow in Ramallah, occupied Palestine with the award-winning Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq. He is the co-author of a series of forthcoming reports responding to allegations against the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs of attacks against Palestinian individuals and civil society institutions
