In recent years, UK universities’ student-led groups, such as the Palestine Society at SOAS, have clearly imposed dominating anti-Israel rhetoric, making it a normal standard for many more academic institutions around the country.
In 2020, the Universities of Oxford, Manchester, and Leeds were publicly shamed and condemned by various anti-Israel movements, claiming that their exchange programs with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are only funding and supporting a state whose actions are allegedly “contrary to international law”.
This is a direct step from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement towards the formation of less welcoming university campuses for Israeli, Jewish, and Zionist students. This organization, which over time, has proven its radical antisemitic nature, is the core of growing anti-Israel movements on university campuses all around the world.
For the past couple of years, the Student Union at University College London (UCL) has been a strong advocate of the BDS Campaign. For Israeli, Jewish, and Zionist students at the University of London, this means that in order to be able to make an impact on campus, let alone be allowed to run for a position in the Student Union, they would be “forced to boycott” their own nation.
This is an illiberal and unjustified attempt to minimize the involvement of Jewish students within their university body.
Picture this same scenario occurring with any other nation or religion. Without a shadow of a doubt, the entire student population in the United Kingdom, and most likely, the world, would be exclaiming their disagreements with the Student Union’s actions.
Mass protests defending the rights and freedoms of the given nationality or religion would be led throughout every single university campus in the country, and the university would be condemned for permitting such blatant discrimination and hatred. But when there are such forms of prejudice against Israel or Jews, Student Unions try to make excuses for why these campaigns are justified and just a form of freedom of expression. Even worse, British Student Unions have gone as far as to undermine Israeli integrity and directly “affliate with the BDS movement”.
I suppose, after all, the inherent discriminatory state of the National Union for Students (NUS) was perfectly exposed in 2022 with their, now ex-president, Shaima Dallali, being found guilty of antisemitism and, naturally, bias against Israeli and Jewish students in the UK.
In addition to corrupting the NUS and leading to poor judgments from important Union officials – such as the cold-blooded comment about enjoying “dead baby’s blood” addressed to a Jewish student – the BDS movement has also directly targeted, through its grassroots bigotry campaigns, many Jewish and Israeli students throughout the UK. Some of their most utilized tactics include isolating these students, disrupting events hosted by or featuring Israeli or Jewish speakers, and organizing mass faculty and student protests to stifle university engagement with Jewish and Israeli students or scholars.
At the University of Birmingham, following the rise of the BDS movement in the UK, antisemitism instantly became more and more of an issue for Jewish students. After sharing a picture on social media of one of many “Hitler was right” posters on campus, this Jewish student was flooded with antisemitic comments and replies. Of course, this malevolent series of actions by anti-Israel incendiaries was not directly linked to the BDS organization’s name. Nonetheless, the influence of the international anti-Israel campaign is certainly categorical, incentivizing an increasing number of both students and professors to act against the Israeli community on UK campuses, and thus, leading to spiteful actions such as the one at the University of Birmingham.
The anti-Israel agenda has been made clear by UK University Student Unions. Promoting ineffective boycotts that harm Israeli industries and publicly praising antisemitic propaganda models are only some of the adopted methods of the anti-Israel groups on UK university campuses. Not only are they terrorizing the university experiences of Israeli, Jewish, and Zionist students, but they are giving future students more and more reasons to fear these university campuses, as well as the people who run them.
With a new academic year having just begun, these inequitable Student Unions and other student bodies should be held accountable by their universities, realizing the harm they cause to Israeli and Jewish students. But will the 2023/24 academic year be one of changed and improved conditions for the Israeli and Jewish student communities, or will the path of repetitive discriminatory sequences survive for another year?
A slightly different version of this article was published in ROAR, the official campus paper of Kings College, London (KCL).