By Richard Holt
Last Updated: 12:10pm BST 13/06/2007

A Jewish peer has warned that anti-Semitism is at its worst level in
Britain since he fled here from Germany in 1936.

Lord Moser said he was particularly concerned about anti-Jewish feeling
in Britain's universities.

Addressing a House of Lords debate on anti-Semitism on university
campuses, the crossbench peer said: "It is just over 70 years since I
came to this country and I have to say that I've never been more
concerned about the rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout Europe,
including this country.

"This is evident in many ways and among my greatest worries is what is
happening on university campuses where there have been many examples of
anti-Semitic outbursts and discrimination.

"Leadership of the universities and the Government need to speak out in
the strongest terms against such interference."

During the Lords debate there was cross-party condemnation of a proposal
by the Universities and Colleges Union Congress to boycott Israeli
universities.

Baroness Morris of Bolton, for the Conservatives, attacked "a handful of
lecturers who seem to have hijacked their union".

She said the proposed boycott "makes us look, unfairly, biased and
petty-minded and it plays into the hands of radical fanatics on campus.
There is a time and a place for teenage gesture politics - this isn't it."

Lord Patten, the former Conservative education secretary, described the
idea of a boycott as "entirely abhorrent - engagement is always better
than exclusion".

Baroness Walmsley, a Liberal Democrats, also opposed a boycott, saying:
"I abhor the idea of limitations on legitimate academic freedom within
reasonable limits."

Lord Adonis, the education Minister said: "The Government unequivocally
deplores any proposed boycott.

"A boycott is not only wrong in principle, undermining the integrity of
relations between bona fide centres of learning but in practice its only
likely effect would be to weaken the progressive forces within both
Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories."