Professor David Miller was sacked by the University of Bristol. (YouTube screengrab)

London, October 6 (RHC)-- A University of Bristol professor who was sacked last week for his pro-Palestine comments says there is a campaign led by the Israeli regime to silence the voices in support of the Palestinian cause.

David Miller, a professor of political sociology and a member of the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol, was speaking in an exclusive interview to Press TV, in which he said said he was “shocked” by what the British university had done.

“I’m feeling a bit shocked but I was kind of anticipating it,” Miller said, four days after the university released a statement, saying the decision to immediately terminate his employment was prompted by its “duty of care to students and the wider university community.”

“I have been working for decades in higher education in this country and I never thought that making political comments at an external political meeting, when I wasn’t at work, could possibly led to my sacking,” Miller told Press TV, expressing disappointment at the decision.  “There is a campaign led by Israel to silence all of those who would in anyways support Palestinian rights.”

The university had launched an investigation into the sociology professor’s pro-Palestine statements in March, in a case that sharply divided the campus.  He had allegedly called for “the end of Zionism” and warned that some Jewish students were being used as “political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime.”

The investigation, which included an independent report, considered the “important issue of academic freedom of expression” and concluded that his comments “did not constitute unlawful speech.”  However, a disciplinary hearing of the university overruled the findings and concluded that he “did not meet the standards of behavior we expect from our staff.”

“We have a duty of care to all students and the wider university community, in addition to a need to apply our own codes of conduct consistently and with integrity,” the statement noted. “Balancing those important considerations, and after careful deliberation... the university has concluded that Prof Miller’s employment should be terminated with immediate effect.”

The academic has been a long-time advocate of the Palestinian resistance movement and has on several occasions faced hostile attacks for his pro-Palestine and anti-Israel stance. In 2019, he was at the center of the storm for referring to the Zionist movement as “one of five sources of Islamophobia,” and showing a diagram linking Jewish charities to Zionist lobbying.