Exeter PhD candidate, Zarefah Baroud, has a history of using emotionally charged language and historical revisionism to demonise Israel.

It comes as no surprise that the same person who cheered Hamas’s massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7 and denounced Israel’s response, wrote an opinion piece for Al Jazeera in 2022 that relied on blatant historical distortions related to the 1948 war of Independence and the Palestinian Refugee crisis to argue that Israel is the cause of all Palestinian suffering.

It’s sad to hear that some of her family members perished during the current Hamas-initiated war. However, her reliance on the outright lies that Israel forcibly expelled all Arabs during the 1948 war and is now legally obligated to allow the return of their descendants essentially justifies modern Palestinian terrorism.

For example, she uses the fact that her family was displaced from their town in northern Gaza during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war to characterise all Arab displacement as “ethnic cleansing.” What she omits is that the invading Arab military leaders used dishonest propaganda to either scare or persuade Palestinians into fleeing and ignore many Jewish communities’ pleas to stay. The vast majority did, setting the stage for the refugee issue that continues today.

During the war, some Arab towns near Egypt’s borders (as well as the borders of the other invading Arab countries) were militarily occupied by Israel for strategic importance.  The fear was that Egypt and local Arab militias would use such places to threaten nearby Israeli communities. The official Israeli defence plan instructed the military to only expel the population if they fired weapons at Israeli soldiers and allow peaceful communities to stay.  Zarefah’s family was unfortunately in one of the non-peaceful towns. Still, two million Arabs currently live in Israel and enjoy equal rights.

While colleges generally pride themselves on being included on various lists, Tulane has now joined a list nobody wants to be on: one of the growing list of American universities that has had an anti-Israel encampment on its campus.

On Monday, April 29, a mob of anti-Israel protesters descended on Tulane’s campus, occupying and setting up a tented encampment on the lawn outside Gibson Hall. Tulane’s anti-Israel encampment is part of a nationwide protest movement in which anti-Israel students and outside activists are occupying university property, disrupting the educational process, and threatening and intimidating Jewish and pro-Israel students.

These protesters at Tulane are not peaceful. All night, they spewed antisemitic slogans on megaphones, chided police officers, and tried to instigate fights with Jewish counter-protesters and observers across the street.

They chanted “From the river to the sea,” a slogan deemed antisemitic by the US Congress. They held signs expressing their solidarity with terrorist groups, bearing slogans such as “long live the Palestinian resistance.” One of their encampment tents featured a sign with a red upside down triangle, a dog-whistle symbol that denotes support for Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

Jewish Tulane students were spat on and threatened in the street. Several members of the anti-Israel mob were arrested for setting up tents and clashing with police, and charged with trespassing and battery on police officers.

Antisemitic cases have reached the highest level in UK recorded history, particularly impacting Jewish students on university campuses.

On 20 March 2024, the King’s College London (KCL) Israel Society was set to host a campus event focused on “conflict resolution” regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. This event was going to welcome two external guest speakers on KCL’s campus: Ely Lassman – an Israeli veteran of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and chair of Prometheus on Campus – a non-profit organisation defending the liberal order, and Kiyah Willis – an American fellow at the Objective Standard Institute, another organisation advocating human liberties and freedoms through “rational philosophy”. Unsurprisingly, the KCL Israel Society decided to cancel at the last minute citing “security concerns” after the resident anti-Israel groups made threats.

In the days leading up to the event, both Lassman and Willis reportedly received numerous death threats on social media, with direct calls for harming the speakers as well as “calls to jihad” according to one of the intended speakers, Kiyah Willis. With the concerning threats online and thousands supportive of rallying in person, the Society was essentially forced to call off the event. So much for protecting free speech.

Since January, Jewish students at the University of Leeds have similarly been under what can only be described as constant attack. In February, the Jewish Chaplain for the University, Rabbi Deutsch, was “forced into hiding” after receiving various death threats targeting him, as well as his family. Around the same time, the Hillel House, used as a community centre for Jewish students, was vandalised with “Free Palestine” graffiti. Most recently, a stall on campus raising awareness of the 134 remaining hostages in Gaza was attacked. The students who attacked the stall were not held accountable – neither by the university nor by the police present at the scene who stood idly by.

• 1-3 years of relevant work experience.
• A willingness to relocate and work out of our Boston office.
• Strong event planning skills.
• Strong skills in communications, interpersonal relations, and organization.
• Strong knowledge of history and politics as it relates to the Middle East, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
• Excellent writing/editing skills.
• Fluency in English.