THE organisers of a controversial university conference at a Hampshire university say it has been scrapped due to “health and safety” concerns.

The organisers of the event on the future of Israel say they were told by university chiefs that it would not go ahead next month.

However university chiefs say they are still reviewing the event and have not yet made a final decision.

They had said the three-day Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism event would have looked at the on-going situation between Palestine and Israel.

It had been due to feature contributions from a range of academics, including Professor Oren Ben-Dor, a former Israeli who has supported boycotts of the country, and Professor George Bisharat, another expert who has criticised the nation.

A petition calling on organisers to scrap the even gathered more than 6,000 signatures, with its organisers saying it would “legitimize the harmful message that Israel's very existence is up for debate”.

And outgoing Fareham Conservative MP Mark Hoban had also called for the event to be cancelled, saying it was “one sided” and “hard line”.

Reacting to the news that the conference had been cancelled, its organisers said: “This is a sad decision for freedom of speech and for historic Palestine (which includes what is now the Jewish State of Israel and the 1967 Occupied Territories) and all the people who live there.

“We will explore legal emergency measures to prevent the University from cancelling the conference, to reverse its decision and to properly collaborate with the police so that the demonstrations can be managed.

“In addition we call for the widest and most intense public campaign possible that would urgently encourage the university to reverse its decision and which would allow the conference to go ahead."

A spokesman for the university said: “The University of Southampton is in discussion with the organisers of the conference ‘International Law and the State of Israel’ about the possibility of withdrawing permission for the event to be held on campus. 

"However, this review process is still ongoing.  Any decision will be judged purely on considerations around the health and safety of our staff, students and for the general public.”