Radical groups creating climate of fear at European universities - report

The report on antisemitism at universities in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom found that university policies regarding discrimination against Jewish students were inconsistently upheld. Furthermore, the academic institutions in these countries failed to address the radicalization that had been fostered on campus by extremist groups.

In one example provided in the report, Samidoun and Masar Badil-affiliated activists were involved in the occupation of a Berlin Humboldt University building and in the subsequent protests.

The report also charged that other campus protest groups had documented links to Hamas, such as Dar al Janub.

Another recurring element found by the researchers was the involvement of communist groups and parties in anti-Israel campus activities.

The Revolutionary Communist Party (RKP) of Austria, for instance, was allegedly regularly present at universities, holding rallies, recruiting new members, and distributing materials.

European campuses reportedly hosted branches of radical umbrella groups that were unrelated to university societies and clubs, but drove campus protests, supplied speakers, and coordinated slogans. This included national and local branches of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) groups.

Democ co-executive director Grischa Stanjek said that the report showed that the protests were part of a calculated global anti-democratic campaign by transnational organizations.

“What we are seeing on individual campuses is not isolated incidents of student protest. The documentation gathered in this report makes it clear that we are dealing with highly coordinated, transnational networks that operate as part of a global movement,” Stanjek said in a press release. “They strategically disguise an antisemitic agenda in the language of human rights to gain legitimacy.”

Students also complained about professors who taught anti-Israel perspectives framed in anti-colonial and anti-imperialist contexts. The report cited one Austrian professor who allegedly said that “anyone who recognizes Israel’s right to exist recognizes imperialism, colonialism, and racism.”

Professors have been found by the researchers to be consistently participating in protests and other activist efforts; the involvement of authority figures further ostracizes Jewish students and colleagues.

A UK professor supposedly posted on social media that “Hebrew propaganda reveals some very devious lies. The ease with which the Jew, whether ordinary or influential, describes the mutilations of war is indicative of a placid cruelty.”

The report said that the environment of violent anti-Israel rhetoric has fostered physical violence against students. A Jewish German Israeli student was reportedly hospitalized with facial fractures after being beaten by another student at the Free University of Berlin.

The Union of Jewish Students of Belgium’s co-president was allegedly assaulted near a campus building occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters. Reportedly, as a passerby tried to intervene, the assailant told them that the attack was necessary since the victim was Jewish.

Students also shared threats made against them, with one student finding the words “dirty Jewess die” and a Nazi swastika on her personal belongings. A Jewish student’s dorm room was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and swastikas at the Bruges College of Europe as well.

B’nai B’rith International EU Affairs director Alina Bricman said in a statement that the lack of action by academic institutions against radical campus activists over free speech issues was shown to be an excuse with the abundance of extreme incidents.

“When Jewish students fear being violently harassed on campus, when in the most prestigious European universities Jewish students might find swastikas or death threats on their personal property, when they are not allowed access to spaces and events due to their presumed Zionism, the free speech argument is a canard,” said Bricman.

In November 2023, Paris University’s library was spray-painted with the slogans “death to Israel, death to the Jews” and “death, hell, suits them so well.”

Moreover, terrorism and terrorists were glorified on campuses across Europe, according to the report’s findings. The UK-based Palestine and Ahlul-Bayt student societies were accused of praising deceased Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and deceased Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

Last May, student protesters at the Université Libre de Bruxelles Solbosch campus renamed a building after PFLP cell commander Walid Daqqa. The same building saw a banner of Lebanese terrorist Georges Abdallah draped across its facade.

In Germany, the Zora feminist group allegedly described the Hamas-led 2023 pogrom as an “act of self-defense.” The intifadas were repeatedly promoted, with an “intifada camp” organized at the University of Vienna and an “intifada festival” held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Additionally, the universities were subject to constant vandalism, according to the report. The researchers noted that the Université Libre de Bruxelles suffered an estimated 500,000-700,000 euros in damage from the tagging of walls, destruction of equipment, and ravaging of lecture halls.

Students shared how they felt ostracized and unsafe across the reviewed European campuses.

“I wouldn’t dare to go to the campus with my Star of David necklace or in a generally Jewishly recognizable way, especially now with the camp there and with the slogans that are shouted or the ideas that prevail there,” one student told the researchers. “It makes you think twice about whether you really have to go to the campus, or simply not go and not put yourself in a situation where antisemitic slogans are being shouted and antisemitic ideas are simply being spread.”

In her foreword to the report, the European Commission Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, Katharina von Schnurbein, said that Jewish students had to hide their identity or abandon in-person learning due to the atmosphere.

“The present report is an important documentation of the lived realities on university campuses that should inform immediate action by university administrators and policymakers alike,” wrote von Schnurbein.

The reaction of universities to the protests varied across different countries. Protesters received institutional support in Italy and Spain. In France, many demonstrations were banned, and a new antisemitism reporting system was introduced. Austria and Sweden also cleared some encampments when Hamas was openly praised. In Germany, the ability to register violent antisemitic students was introduced.

B’nai B’rith International’s president, Robert Spitzer, and its CEO, Daniel S. Mariaschin, said in a joint statement that it was clear that European universities were failing Jewish students.

“Just as we have seen on campuses across the United States, antisemitism here is too often excused as ‘activism.’ But in reality, it is a threat to the safety, inclusion, and the very integrity of higher education,” said Spitzer and Mariaschin.

The report offered several recommendations to improve campus atmospheres, including vetting external groups and figures who have been instigating encampments and protests.

Rules and guidelines for demonstrations needed to be clearer and enforced, according to the report. The researchers also recommended that universities define antisemitism so that they could better understand the problems to then develop more effective reporting procedures for students to alert authorities.