Israeli flag in Jerusalem. Photo: IPT.

The London School of Economics reportedly removed a blog post from its website by an Australian academic claiming Zionism to be an ideology based on concepts of racial superiority.

LSE decided to take the post down because it failed to comply with “editorial guidelines,” according to a statement published by the Jewish Chronicle, which reported extensively on Notre Dame University Mideast politics professor Dr. Sandra Nasr’s blog post since its publication last week.

The statement, according to the UK JC, read:

LSE has received a number of complaints regarding a recent post on the student-led Human Rights blog. The post was by a non-LSE academic and, as noted on the blog, the views expressed were by the author alone.

With all academic engagement, the School will seek to balance the concerns of research quality, academic freedom and reputation. LSE uses blogs, among other channels, to offer a platform for academic discussion on often contentious and emotive topics. The School has firm guidelines on blog posts and editorial procedure.

Regretfully, editorial guidelines were not followed in this instance. The blog post has now been taken down.

While The Algemeiner did not manage to see Nasr’s post prior to its removal, a segment was copied and pasted to the Islamic blog called “Rehmat’s World.” The paragraph described Zionism as a colonialist enterprise based on divine instruction, as derived from the Old Testament.

“Zionism, the ideological project to secure a Jewish homeland, relies upon notions of separateness, superiority and entitlement. It finds its origins in the ‘promise’ believed to have been made by God to ‘His people’ – Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites. According to this belief, they were to take the land by force, kill anyone who resisted, and take for slaves those who did not fight back (except in more distant towns which should just be cleansed). Biblical Theologian Professor Michael Prior called this ‘ethnic cleansing’, where God’s Covenant with the Israelites ‘was integrally linked with the mandate to exterminate the indigenous peoples,'” Nasr’s blog read.

The UK Board of Deputies of British Jews President Jonathan Arkush responded to the blog last Thursday, saying, “This piece is contemptible and I have written to LSE demanding its removal forthwith.”