A British research council tries to send Dr Toufic Haddad's dismissal case to Israeli courts

Dr Toufic Haddad, a Palestinian-American scholar and a leading figure in Palestine Studies, was Director of the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, the local arm of the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL), a UK-registered body, governed from London and publicly funded through the British Academy. He was dismissed in 2023, officially on grounds of funding cuts from the British Academy.

Haddad contends the dismissal was political discrimination tied to his scholarship and public positions on Palestine, including his opposition to Israel's war on Gaza and to the clampdown on Palestinian academics. He notes that in the wake of 7 October 2023, CBRL trustees asked him to maintain a low profile and not speak to the media. He has said CBRL had a professional, moral and historical duty in that context, and instead sought to silence him and then sacked him; a case he argues exposes the priorities of British academia and its funding structures.

Rather than contesting the claim on its merits, CBRL sought to block Haddad's unfair dismissal case in the UK by arguing it should be heard in Israeli courts. Haddad's team submitted a 50-page witness statement backed by more than 3,000 pages of evidence to establish that his employment was more closely connected to the UK than to Israel. The organisation is not a registered entity in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories where it operates - a position it maintains, according to his supporters, to protect its lease from Israeli settlers and avoid legitimising annexation - yet it issued Haddad an Israeli contract while giving British contracts to its directors in Amman. He contests an Israeli hearing on the grounds that a legal system criticised by rights groups as discriminatory toward Palestinians will not give him a fair hearing.

The claim rests on three grounds: unfair dismissal under the Employment Rights Act 1996; discrimination based on political belief, specifically anti-Zionism, under the Equality Act 2010; and the attempt to deny UK jurisdiction. Haddad is represented by the European Legal Support Centre, which instructed barrister Franck Magennis of Garden Court Chambers, and supported by his union, the UCU, represented by London regional secretary Sean Wallis.

Wallis has framed the case as a wider question of employment rights for academic staff at British research institutes abroad, and called it shocking that a British Academy-backed institute would engage lawyers to prevent a scholar arguing his case in UK courts. ELSC spokesperson Tasnima Uddin argued that CBRL is asking a British court to hand a Palestinian academic to a legal system administering annexation and racial domination that the International Court of Justice has ruled unlawful.

On 8 August 2025, the BRISMES Council issued a statement supporting Haddad's right to have his case heard in UK courts and defending his academic freedom. It argued that CBRL, as a publicly funded institution, must uphold academic independence, and that political interference would damage the credibility of UK-funded research institutions more broadly. On jurisdiction, it held that since East Jerusalem is occupied territory under international law and the UK government does not recognise Israeli sovereignty there, CBRL's assertion that Israeli courts have jurisdiction effectively amounts to recognising that sovereignty, contradicting established international legal norms.

BRISMES also raised the closure of the Kenyon Institute since 2024. The Institute had for more than a century served as a research hub linking UK-based scholars with Palestinian academic, cultural and civil society communities, housing a library, archives and facilities used by visiting and local researchers alike. Its loss, BRISMES argued, is a withdrawal of support for academic life in Palestine at precisely the moment when Israeli military action has devastated Palestinian universities. It called on CBRL to reckon with its historical role in colonial governance and knowledge production, as an institution once serving the objectives of the British Mandate.

The public hearing, initially listed for 1- 4 July 2025, was rescheduled to 11-13 March 2026 and held online through the HMCTS video service. The final day, 13 March 2026, covered the remainder of testimony and cross-examination and closing submissions from both sides.