How best to commemorate the horrors of October 7th, 2023? How to mark the day on which hundreds of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, slaughtering almost 1,200 people, injuring thousands more, and taking 251 hostages? For students at the University of Liverpool, the answer seems to be a ‘bake sale’. That’s right. In remembrance of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, students will eat cake and raise money for Palestine. ‘Time for Dessert’ is the event’s sickening slogan.
Protests are expected to take place today at universities throughout the UK
Sadly, Liverpool is far from unique. Protests are expected to take place today at universities throughout the UK. Not demonstrations against Hamas, or the states that harboured and funded the October 7th militia. No, according to the warped morality of campus protesters, this second anniversary, coming just days after the murder of two Jews in a synagogue in Manchester, is the perfect time for them to express their loathing of the world’s only Jewish nation.
At Queen Mary University in London, organisers are planning a rally entitled: ‘Two Years of Genocide, Two Years of Resistance.’ As has become all too familiar by now, Jews are not allowed to be victims of the massacre waged against them. Instead, it is Gazans who are both victims of Israeli forces and, simultaneously, heroes of the ‘resistance’. This same theme is picked up by students in Birmingham who have planned a campus vigil for Palestine to ‘honour our martyrs’, advertised with the slogan: ‘two years of genocide, 100-years of resistance’. At Goldsmiths, University of London, students are also planning a ‘night of remembrance and resistance’.
At King’s College in London, students have organised a talk entitled: ‘Why It Didn’t Start On October 7th.’ Who cares if history is abused? All that matters to these modern-day anti-Semites is explaining away the pogrom. It wasn’t an act of savagery, is their message, but a political act of self-defence. Bright young minds, used to highlighting microaggressions, declaring their pronouns, and urging others to ‘Be Kind,’ have dedicated themselves to justifying savagery. It is impossible to imagine an attack on any nation other than Israel being subjected to such gross treatment.
But still the litany of shame continues. Students in Sheffield will hold a rally in support of the Palestinian cause. They have refused requests to change the date because that would involve paying to reprint posters.
Consider, for one moment, if black or queer students complained about an event taking place on campus. Forget printing fees; the organisers would face petitions, mass demonstrations, meetings with senior managers and, most likely, be shamed into cancelling the planned event and issuing a public apology. When it comes to Jewish students, different rules apply.
At Strathclyde University, the vibe seems positively jovial; students are invited to ‘grab your flag and keffiyeh’ and attend a ‘Protest 4 Palestine’.
The transformation of barbarous, anti-Semitic murderers into heroes and martyrs worthy of celebration shames our universities. That the planned campus events mirror the protests that have plagued our cities for the past two years is no excuse. For more than a decade now, our universities have nurtured Jew hatred dressed up as anti-Zionism. Through Israeli apartheid weeks, campaigns for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, and calls for students to join an ‘electronic intifada’, a new strain of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) compliant anti-Semitism was birthed on campus. Far from being frowned upon by lecturers and university managers, academics and DEI officers have been at the forefront of promoting anti-Israeli sentiment.
It is in this climate that anti-Semitism flourished in the aftermath of the October 7th pogrom. Jewish students have reported experiencing verbal abuse, threats, assaults, and the desecration of property. At the University of Leeds, a Jewish student centre was vandalised with ‘IDF off campus’ and ‘Free Palestine’ daubed in graffiti. In St Andrews, visibly Jewish students were pelted with eggs as they returned from an event with the Chief Rabbi.
Such incidents are, of course, condemned by those running our universities. But they occur in a context where arguing for the obliteration of Israel is of a piece with being against colonialism, white supremacism, and Western hegemony, and donning a keffiyeh paves the way to the moral high ground. For this reason, Keir Starmer’s call for students to shun ‘un-British’ protests is bound to fall on deaf ears. The only country students steeped in critical race theory and decoloniality hate as much as Israel is Britain.
Today’s planned anti-Israel protests make clear the scale of anti-Semitism on campus. Sadly, it will take far more than platitudes from the Prime Minister to root out this vile infestation.
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