Anti-Semitism: University Campus Incidents

The School of Oriental and African Studies maintains its poisonous reputation for Jewish students. A Canadian student was forced to abandon his studies there because of the toxic atmosphere. He was branded a Nazi supremacist for disclosing his support for Israel and was refunded his £15,000 fees. At SOAS, others complained, being Jewish means you are called fascist. The Malaysian Prime Minister was invited to speak at both the Oxford and Cambridge Unions, was openly anti-Semitic and was greeted with laughter.

Lecturers have spontaneously called the Holocaust “too Jewish” or indulged in the old slander of over-powerful conspiring Zionists. How ironic that the practice of no-platforming is so acceptable in universities but not when it comes to anti-Semitic speech. What an indictment of the failure to deal with the problem, that some Jewish students choose a university not by the course content or the quality of teaching but by the extent of anti-Semitism that they might encounter. Some academic staff have been shown to work together to foster an atmosphere inimical to Jewish students and teach and supervise others handing on the same antagonism to the next generation.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism helpfully draws the distinction between legitimate criticism of the Israeli Government, like any other Government, and anti-Semitic calls for Israel to be destroyed or compared to a Nazi regime. Legitimate criticism of Israel is to anti-Zionism what literary criticism is to book burning. I mention the Israel element because of the wise observations of the late Lord Sacks. Antisemitism, he said, mutates like a virus. It used to manifest itself as religious discrimination, then it was racial, and now it focuses on attacking the self-determination of the Jews in their only, tiny, state.

The IHRA definition is not intended to be legally binding but to help perception and eradication of anti-Semitic activity. Why then is it not more widely adopted and why have some academics pushed back at it in a way that undermines their students’ protection? Notable among those is University College London. An academic board was set up there to try to reverse the college’s adoption of the definition which did not even include a Jewish student; can one imagine today a panel about campus racism without a black student? It argued against protection of Jewish students by saying that to define anti-Semitism is exceptionalism and blocks free speech. But anti-Semitism is exceptional in its length and breadth. As for blocking free speech about Israel, there are no examples ever of the definition having resulted in any reduction in academic freedom or research. Hardly any other country is so widely discussed. The definition is unequivocal about free speech. The irony is that the rejectionists are the ones seeking to stop Israel-connected speakers and to block academic research co-operation. What is to be done about this?

Holocaust education, which is compulsory for schoolchildren, sadly has not worked. How is it possible that an entire generation who has studied the holocaust can arrive at university and behave in the ways I have outlined? It is because they have studied the Holocaust in a vacuum, as an example of generalised hate, and have resigned it to history. They have learned nothing about the contribution of Jews to civilisation, about the millennia of persecution, and how that, and religious teaching, led to genocide; they have not learned of the overwhelming need for a safe haven and how Jewish self-determination in Israel is the best protection against genocide in the modern world. All they learn is that Jews were killed in their millions and all they see is pictures of death camps and bodies. It is not surprising that the brute reaction of some is to replicate Nazi slogans when they vent their hatred at universities. There is a need to widen Holocaust education into education about Jewish history. That is why the planned Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, at a cost of over £100 million and a destroyed park, is such a wasted effort. It will present the Holocaust again as something in the past, something over there, not here. It will enable alleged anti-Semites to continue to pay their respects to 6 million dead Jews, badge themselves as anti-racist and then carry on attacking Jews of today and their only state, Israel. How much easier it is to mourn the lost generation than to respect the living Jews of today. It will give the impression of “job done”.

So will the Minister take steps to ensure that more universities adopt the IHRA definition and incorporate it in their codes of conduct? Will he also promote a complete overhaul of Holocaust education so that students learn about Jewish history, why Jews were persecuted and how unwarranted are attacks on today’s community?