Action at last

This week’s decision by the University of Central Lancashire to cancel its Friends of Palestine group’s “Israel Apartheid Week” panel, and the active consideration being given by other university authorities to similar bans, is heartening. Most obviously, it shows the power that government has to do good. By adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, it has given universities a further tool for stamping out bigotry on campus — or, perhaps more accurately, has forced some of those which have previously failed to act to realise that it is no longer acceptable to do nothing. Too often in the past, the bigots have been able to use the lack of an accepted definition to argue that their antisemitism is simply antiZionism. Now, however, it is much easier to show when a line is being crossed. The government deserves much credit for this.