This week at one of Britain’s most prestigious universities, an academic has been accused of sitting in front of a room full of students and recounting a blood libel. Dr Samar Maqusi allegedly used a University College London classroom to teach that in 1840 Jews killed a monk in Damascus to use his blood to make food for Passover. This is the state of UK universities in 2025.
Since 7 October, Jewish people have been under grim and regular attack at Britain’s universities. Their assailants didn’t just want the war in Gaza to end; they don’t just want to see a Palestinian state. Their true aim is the removal of all ties with Israel, Israelis and anyone who has any connection to that country or those people. Given that seven million of the world’s 15 million Jews live in Israel, and given that the vast majority of Jews globally identify as Zionist, the ultimate target was always Jews. At first this was implicit. Now it is not.
Crowds have blocked libraries or marched in public areas demanding ‘No Zios on campus’. Jewish student societies and Israel student societies have been targeted, their events threatened, their members doxed. Jewish academics have seen their faces plastered on posters around campus with the word ‘Zionist’ put next to them, like it is an accusation. Israeli professors have had masked men and women storm into their lectures threatening violence.
They threaten to behead Israeli staff. They demand Zio free zones. They hold up pictures of the Star of David being put in the bin. At their demonstrations they chant: ‘Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud! Jaish Muhammad soufa yaʿoud!’ I know enough Arabic to know the warning. At the 7th century Battle of Khaybar, a Jewish community was besieged by Muhammad’s army. Today’s protestors shout: ‘Oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!’
What would it mean for these people to get their way? No more Zionists on staff; students presumably being vetted before being admitted. No more research projects on medicine or science with Israeli institutions. University College London capitulating to nearly 1,000 staff members who pressured their provost to cut all ties with parts of Google. No more teaching texts from Zionist scholars in classrooms. No more using or learning from Zionist Nobel Prize winners’ work.
The masks have been ripped off
They have been emboldened by a climate of rising anti-Semitism in Britain. Some people now openly demand that areas are free from Zionists. In Camden Town, in London, campaigners declared a ‘Zio Free Zone’ with posters around the venue hosting a Bob Vylan gig. Earlier this month, masked men spent the early hours of the morning doing a similar thing on a far larger scale around Villa Park, in Birmingham. ‘Zios Not Welcome’ signs were in windows of shops and restaurants. ‘Zio’, of course, is a not-so-coded word for Israelis and/or Jews. The masks have been ripped off: they are no longer asking for a free-Palestine, but rather a UK – and probably a world – free of Israelis and Jews.
The open teaching of a blood libel at UCL this week happened because Jewish and Israeli staff and students have not been taken seriously when they have raised concerns about anti-Semitism over the past two years. The lecturer was able to openly teach anti-Semitic tropes because the university they were in, alongside many of its counterparts, has failed repeatedly to take seriously or act upon anti-Semitism when it has been brought to their attention.
Comments