What happens in institutions of higher education is not an academic question.
When I read a report by The Jerusalem Post’s Mathilda Heller two weeks ago, noting that UK Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson had instructed British universities to take a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism, I was at first relieved. Finally, someone in a top position was taking a tough stand against Jew-hatred on campuses. And then the real meaning hit me.
Surely it should not take the education secretary wagging a finger to tell university heads that antisemitism is not acceptable. The top academics and leading educators should already know that. They should be acting to make sure Jewish students feel safe because it’s the right thing to do, not because of threats to their funding and status.
In places established to foster the broadening of knowledge and exchange of ideas, chants to “Globalize the intifada” and other calls to violence should not have been allowed to gain a foothold, let alone dominate the discourse.
Under the headline “UK gov. ministers set to launch antisemitism crackdown,” the report also noted that following the deadly attack at a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, new measures are also being put in place in the medical field. There are Jewish patients – and staff – who do not feel safe in Britain’s hospitals.
According to the report, Health Secretary Wes Streeting promised to “make it easier [for the General Medical Council] to kick racists out of the NHS [National Health Service].”
The move is apparently a response to the failure to suspend Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, who, among other things, celebrated the October 7, 2023, Hamas mega-atrocity, when 1,200 were murdered, 251 abducted, and thousands wounded. The father of the Manchester terrorist, incidentally, is also a doctor who praised the October 7 attacks as they took place, although he called his son’s actions “heinous.”
As part of the crackdown, UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced that hate preachers will be barred from leadership roles at mosques and Islamic Centers: “…we have seen too many shocking cases where extremists have tried to exploit charities to spread hate and division,” she said via Telegram.
SEEING WHAT is happening in the UK and elsewhere in the so-called “free world,” I recalled reports of released hostage Tal Shoham saying his Hamas guards had included a first-grade teacher, a doctor, and a university professor. The terrorists’ tunnels, where attacks were planned and hostages held, had been constructed under hospitals, schools, mosques, UN facilities, and “regular” homes.
The links between Gaza and global intifada supporters are real and extremely dangerous. Perhaps this explains the silence among pro-Palestinian protesters when faced with the brutality of Hamas trying to reestablish its control in Gaza through summary mass executions and breaking the legs of members of rival clans. None of the Gazans, by the way, show the effects of the mass starvation that the world media obsessed over.
Remember the outrage when Israel hit hospitals serving as terrorist bases? Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh noted on X last week that “according to Palestinian sources, Hamas has opened detention and interrogation centers in the following hospitals: Shifa, al-Ahli, al-Aqsa, and Nasser” in Gaza.
A chilling report by The Jerusalem Post’s Michael Starr last week noted that many of the pro-Palestinian protesters who had been demanding “Ceasefire now!” have “now pivoted their advocacy toward several objectives to weaken Israel militarily or politically, with many expressing that the next step is the eradication of Israel.”
This is hardly surprising given the meaning of the omnipresent call “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Many student groups consider it not only acceptable but desirable to call for genocide – as long as it results in dead Jews.
'Gaza Gaza, make us proud'
A 20-year-old Oxford University student, Samuel Williams, has been suspended for chanting at a rally in London: “Gaza, Gaza, make us proud, put the Zios in the ground.”
A video of Williams – wrapped, of course, in a culturally appropriated keffiyeh – went viral in the sickest sense of the word. Williams and his pals boasted about the “chant that we’ve been workshopping in Oxford.” Apparently, they consider it a refinement on the slogan of rapper Bob Vylan: “Death, death to the IDF.”
Williams was reportedly studying politics, philosophy, and economics at the prestigious university. One wonders what bombshells the workshops of terrorist-supporting chemistry students are producing globally.
My own alma mater, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been celebrating its centennial this year – or trying to celebrate. The war on seven fronts, rocket and drone attacks, and the general mood while there were still live hostages in Gaza, and so many mobilized soldiers, took their toll. The Hebrew University offers a lesson in academic excellence and coexistence.
For those who insist that Israel was created only because of the Holocaust, it should be noted that the Hebrew University, whose founders included Albert Einstein, opened its doors 100 years ago – before the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. The foundation stone was laid on Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus at a time when the Jews were known as “Palestinians” and the local Christians and Muslims were called “Arabs.”
A DECISION by West Midlands Police to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club fans from attending the Europa League match against Aston Villa in Birmingham on November 6 gained a lot of attention this week. Ostensibly due to police fears that they would not be able to protect the Israeli visitors, the decision was encouraged by local MP Ayoub Khan and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, among others.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for the ban to be overturned. Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill described it as “an admission that Britain is no longer a safe place for Jews” and advocated calling off the match, rather than preventing Israelis from attending.
“This is like saying the solution to anti-Jewish pogroms is to get rid of Jews. No Jews, no problem,” O’Neill wrote. “Indeed, this decision has been shaped by the experience of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam in November 2024 when they were set upon by mobs of Jew haters…
“I can’t believe this needs to be said, but if there had been another ‘Jew hunt’ in Birmingham, the problem would not have been the Jews but their hunters… To ban Jews to try to calm those who hate them is a grotesque genuflection to the twisted logic of Jew-hatred.”
Incidentally, Maccabi TA fans – and players – include Jews and non-Jews.
But football is not the only field where Israelis, Jews, and their supporters are feeling the brunt of hatred. There are too many examples to list here, but they include the decision by Mayor Charles Spapens in the Forest municipality of Brussels to cancel a concert by the band Disturbed, whose lead singer, David Draiman, is an avowed Israel supporter. Here, too, the ban was under the guise of public safety, fearing violent protests.
Also in Belgium, the Flanders Festival Ghent recently called off a concert by the Munich Philharmonic because its conductor is an Israeli, Lahav Shani. The Toronto International Film Festival tried to drop an Israeli film focusing on the events of October 7.
A Jewish Film Festival in Malmo, Sweden, was indefinitely postponed after no venue could be found due to security concerns in this city with a large Muslim immigrant population. The security of the Israeli delegation was also an issue in Malmo during the Eurovision Song Contest two years ago.
There have been threats, not yet completely rescinded, to bar Israel from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest – not for security reasons but just because, well, you know, it’s the Jewish state fighting a war of survival.
In a positive development, it was announced on Tuesday that after two years in which basketball’s EuroLeague refrained from holding games in Israel due to the war, it was returning. But Israeli sports teams – including a chess team and cyclists – have faced discrimination.
At least the International Olympic Committee condemned the Indonesian government’s refusal to issue visas for Israeli gymnasts who wanted to compete in this week’s World Championships. This is despite ostensibly improving relations between Jakarta and Jerusalem.
When authorities claim they can’t protect Jews and would rather ban them than try, it’s clear that a history lesson has not been learned. A “cancel culture” aimed at eradicating the Jewish presence will never stop there.