For more than a year now, protests have been taking place on university campuses worldwide. The University of Exeter in Britain is no exception.
Exeter’s “Friends of Palestine” society holds weekly protests on campus every Wednesday, and these protests have continued despite a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. The protests themselves are intimidating and hostile with calls to “Globalize the intifada” and “Yemen, Yemen make us proud! Turn another ship around.” The refusal from organizers to stop these demonstrations after an announced ceasefire raises important questions about the true nature of this activism and the broader implications of their actions.
The protests, in part, have been directly aimed at the university and its leadership, who demonstrators accuse of being “complicit” in an ongoing genocide due to their research and academic partnerships. At the heart of their demonstrations is a challenge to what they claim is the systematic oppression of Palestinians and “genocidal” policies.
What is most striking about the current state of these protests is their continued presence, despite a ceasefire and hostage deal, and their calls for renewed “resistance,” a word with violent connotations since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. The protests have evolved from demanding a ceasefire to pushing for a complete boycott of Israeli academic and commercial ties or any collaboration with the state at all, there is no sense of any stopping point to their demands.
Not only are they seemingly eternal in their longevity, but they are also systematically antisymmetric by way of double standards, holding Israel to more accounts than any other nation on earth, and by violation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for singling out Israel and refusing to acknowledge the self-determination of the Jewish people.
If the original concept of these protests lay in demanding a ceasefire, then why are they still ongoing? It seems that for many of those involved in the protests, the goal lies not in ending the current conflict, but in challenging the very existence of the State of Israel itself and cutting all possible academic ties to it. By continuing these demonstrations, the group signals that it will not end until Israel ceases to exist in its current form and its partnerships are completely severed. Once again, this is a breach of the IHRA definition as the only democratic nation is being bound by calls to disparish its entire existence.
The repercussions of elongated “resistance” leave Jewish students continually alienated and targeted simply for their identity. This time, it is not even because of the war but Israel’s pure existence.
In this environment, it’s even more important to note that the university has no official ties with the Israeli government or research bodies.
These anti-Israel demonstrations not only undermine the protesters’ original calls for peace but heighten and foster an environment of deepening division. The continued targeting of Israel and its existence is evidence that these protests have taken the shift from advocating for immediate concerns about humanitarian situations to an ideological stance and fight aimed at delegitimizing Israel’s right to exist.
In this specific case, polarized political identities fueling these protests aren’t helped by the presence of Ilan Pappé. Having a professor on campus who advocates for the “collapse of Zionism,” acts as an incentive to protesters who are fabricating division.
The big questions remain: Will these protests stop? If so, when?
While the answers remain elusive, the message seems clear: Their fight extends far beyond a ceasefire, and until Israel’s legitimacy as a state is challenged by university leadership, the protests will continue. Time will tell whether these continued demonstrations lead to understanding and solidarity or further entrench division and hatred.
This article was originally published in The Jewish News Syndicate.
