As part of a campaign promoted by the Israeli Peace Bloc, emails were sent to graduate students Jean-Pierre Gauci and Isla Masson of King's College, London, together with a number of other contributors, asking them to reconsider their decision to speak at a criminology conference at the end of May at Ariel University Centre in an Israeli settlement on occupied territory that contravenes international law.

The otherwise laudable aims of the conference could be just as well be achieved without colluding in a crime under international law by shifting the conference to somewhere in the Occupied Territories other than an illegal settlement – venues such as a hotel or Palestinian university spring to mind.

Neither Gauci nor Masson have stated any intention of withdrawing from the conference, or asking for it to be moved.