An inflammatory Palestinian academic who has said he "takes pride in being a terrorist" is due to address students at a London university on Tuesday.

Dr Azzam Tamimi, who has expressed his wish to be a "martyr" and stated that "Israel must come to an end" has been invited by the Queen Mary University Palestine Solidarity Society.

A director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London, Dr Tamimi is a prominent supporter of terrorist organisation Hamas and has advocated the use of suicide bombings against Israel .

He will speak at an event on the "One State or Two State Solution" alongside the stridently anti-Israel Liberal Democrat peer Jenny Tonge and Israeli-born anti-Zionist academic Haim Bresheeth, who has previously given his backing to the boycotts, sanction and divestment campaign against Israel.

The anti-extremism group Student Rights criticised the university for allowing Dr Tamimi to speak at the event.

A spokesman said: "What is worse is that not only will there be no balance to his hate - filled views, but that the panel he will speak alongside have all declared outspoken opposition to Israel in the past.

"We have frequently called for panels at events like this to be balanced yet student societies continue to load their panels to suit their own opinions."

Queen Mary's principal, Professor Simon Gaskell, said that freedom of expression was at the heart of the university's ethos".

"We neither endorse nor deny the views expressed," he said. "We are implicitly attributing to our university community the intelligence and powers of discrimination to judge for themselves the merits or otherwise of opinions and beliefs presented to them."