The recent return of Israeli hostages and the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has offered a brief glimmer of relief to Jewish students across UK campuses. But the recent disruptions to learning and calls for violence on the City, University of London’s campus reminds us that the battle is far from over.
As reported by British media, masked thugs stormed into Professor Michael Ben-Gad’s lecture and sought to create a threatening and hostile environment in order to pressure the university into taking action against him. A member of the security team at the event independently verified that one of the protesters threatened to chop off the professor’s head.
Despite being employed by the university since 2007, the professor has only recently been targeted by the non-university affiliated group, ‘City Action for Palestine’.
The intruders claimed Ben-Gad was ‘part of the genocide in Gaza’ and chanted slogans including the infamous’ From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’. This phrase has been widely condemned since October 7th as grossly antisemitic and calls for Israel’s destruction. The phrase denies the right to self determination for Jewish people and does a disservice to all those in the region who seek peace.
The most concerning element of this saga is their justification. The masked thugs deemed him a ‘terrorist’, because he was a soldier as a young man in the early 1980s, earned an academic degree at one Israeli university and taught at another. Due to the many existential threats that Israel has faced since its inception and continues to this day, national and/or military service is mandatory for all citizens. By their definition, every single Israeli adult “deserves” to be murdered in cold blood and threatened in public. This is not a legitimate moral position; it is a precursor to another genocide of Jews.
Ben-Gad is not the only victim of these vicious campaigns at City, University of London. Prof Sir Anthony Finkelstein was also targeted by the same group despite not having any direct ties to any Israeli institutions. In his case, the stated reason was that he oversees the institution’s multi-million pound investments in Israeli companies and happens to be Jewish. What an interesting coincidence.
This situation has left me with only one question: How did our society get to the point where it became acceptable to treat Jews with such open disdain?
One clear explanation can be found with biased reporting in the media. The spread of Hamas propaganda has successfully distorted reality and acted as a catalyst for the anti-Zionist narrative that increasingly normalizes open antisemitism, creating an atmosphere where hostility toward Israel, and by extension Jews, is excused as mere political expression – a mindset that has enabled intimidation, threats, and even the disruption of university life, as seen recently at the Northampton campus of City University.
A clear line has been crossed. While the professor was the only one threatened, it’s the entire Jewish community that was targeted.
This follows years of Jewish students being increasingly at risk of hate crimes disguised as pro-Palestinian activism. Whether this movement can actually be reformed or more drastic measures are needed to protect at-risk minority citizens is a question for our administrators and public leaders to determine. If they continue to do nothing, these threats will become acts. It’s already happening all over the world.
If these students still haven’t been expelled or arrested because they concealed their identities like the hateful cowards they are, then why hasn’t the university banned masks? If the authorities were interested in addressing the situation effectively, they should seriously scrutinize any student organization that promotes the same hateful rhetoric as these would-be extremists. All acts of intimidation toward Israelis and Zionist Jews must be unequivocally condemned. Anyone who publicly supports the attacks on Professors Ben-Gad and Finkelstein should face immediate suspension or expulsion.
But how can anyone even begin to address the root of the problem without a clear understanding of antisemitism?
These events should prove beyond a doubt how important it is to implement the IHRA definition of Antisemitism. Not only is it widely accepted among the global Jewish community and governments around the world, but it is the only definition that explains why the kind of antizionism at the center of this story necessarily leads to violence against Jews.
As of yet, no public criticism of the definition has held up to scrutiny. The “working definition” does not silence speech, nor does it arbitrarily censure pro-Palestinian activists who weaponize the memory of the Holocaust to “criticize” Israel.
The use of violent threats and aggressive behavior created an atmosphere of fear and hostility that no member of staff or student should ever face. Institutions of learning must protect open dialogue and ensure that differing viewpoints can be shared without fear of harassment or backlash and those responsible must be held fully accountable for their actions.
Failing to do so will signal to the Jewish community that the university cannot be trusted to ensure even basic safety. If they still fail to act, then Jews will truly have no place on this campus. Thankfully Israel exists. Am Yisrael Chai.
This article was originally published in The Times of Israel Blogs.
