How widespread is antisemitism on university campuses?
Anti-Israel students and academics have disgraced themselves and their institutions
On Thursday Oxford University was thrown into turmoil as police were called following an attempted takeover of the university vice-chancellor’s office by anti-Israel protesters. This resulted in 16 people being arrested on suspicion of aggregated trespass.
In a statement, Thames Police said: “Officers attended Wellington Square at Oxford University, at around 8 a.m. this morning following reports that protesters had gained access to a private office within one of the buildings.”
According to police, one person was arrested for suspicion of common assault. Yet, protesters have denied that there was any violence, and have instead played victim.
“It is evident the administration would rather arrest, silence, and physically assault its own students than confront its enabling of Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” the group said on X.
The university administration, however, has rejected claims that the protest was peaceful.
“This was not a peaceful sit-in, but a violent action that included forcibly overpowering the receptionist, and then entry into the Vice-Chancellor’s office while she was on a call, shouting and starting to barricade the doors,” the university said in a statement.
This is just the latest provocation by anti-Israel students, who have for the last few weeks been turning the Oxford University campus into a hostile environment for Jews, who have experienced a large uptick in antisemitic abuse. This has included swastika graffiti and stickers with images of paragliders such as those used by Hamas along with the slogan “by any means necessary”, which is a coded call for violence.
While it is perfectly normal to be upset by the suffering caused by the Israel-Hamas War. This is an unacceptable way of expressing feelings of sadness and distress.
In a statement, the Oxford Jewish Society and Union of Jewish Students said: “Since October 7th, we have seen an overwhelming surge in antisemitism on campus, and this has only increased in recent weeks… Jewish students must not be left alone in the fight against antisemitism.”
But how widespread exactly is antisemitism among university students and academics? To answer this question, we need only to look at the various responses to antisemitic violence committed by Hamas on October 7th.
Immediately following the October 7th attacks, Oxford University student groups issued a joint statement saying “Israeli-settler-colonial occupation and apartheid” is the root cause of the ongoing violence. The letter goes on to say: “The events of the past several days did not take place in a vacuum: rather they are the result of Palestinians’ long-brewing and well-founded anger in response to Israel forcing them to live in an open-air prison for decades. Every nation that has declared support for Israel is complicit in its genocidal campaign.”
The statement made no mention of the war crimes committed by Hamas death squads which included the deliberate killing of civilians, the rape of women, and the taking of hostages.
Shortly following the Hamas attacks, Cambridge Student Union called for a “mass uprising” to “free the Palestinian people”, and blamed the October 7th attacks on “decades of violent oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state”.
Goldsmiths University College Union also participated in antisemitic victim-blaming when they released a statement that said: “We recognise that the current situation in Palestine cannot be divorced from the ongoing system of Israel’s settler colonialism, apartheid and illegal occupation, and the continuous denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.”
“In the face of the appalling mass ethnic cleansing, we stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, justice and equality in the land of Palestine/Israel.”
Again, no mention was made of Israeli victims or Hamas atrocities. Instead, the university academics took the side of Palestinians when Palestinian terrorists had just committed the largest pogrom against Jews since World War Two.
Similar anti-Israel sentiment has been expressed in American universities as well. On October 7th itself, before the bodies were even cold, Harvard University students posted a statement online expressing that they held Israel “entirely responsible” for the terrorist attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, most of whom were civilians.
Hear that? Entirely responsible. It seems far-left Harvard students believe Hamas had no choice whatsoever. By holding Israel entirely responsible they were pardoning Hamas for their atrocities. In writing these letters, far-left university students were excusing, explaining, and green-lighting further violence against Jews. Yet at the same time, they also exposed the antisemitic hatred that has embedded itself in elite academic institutions and continues to find expression among the anti-Israel protest movement.
Around the world, since the October 7th Hamas attack, anti-Israel protesters have been occupying university campuses and demanding a boycott of Israel. In the US this has resulted in incidents where students have laid siege to university buildings and subsequently been arrested by police.
These direct-action tactics have since been copied in the UK but have not always faced the same response. Some universities, such as Goldsmiths, have given in to protester’s demands, which include divesting funding from Israel and reviewing their adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
Many people will say that only a small radical minority hates Israel and sympathizes with Hamas. Yet polling evidence shows that this is not true. According to a poll of university students by Stand With Us UK, almost 40 percent of students at Russell Group universities believe that the terror attacks on Israel were an “understandable act of resistance”. Only a third consider the October 7th massacre to be a “terrorist attack”. The survey also found that 38 percent think that people publicly supporting Israel on campus should expect to face abuse, whilst 31 percent disagreed.
So, let’s not pretend that it's only a small minority of people who hate Israel and are sympathetic to Hamas, when the evidence clearly shows that this is not true. University campus antisemitism is a serious issue that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. If student protesters continue to act violently then they need to be shut down. Counter-protests are also needed to show that racism is not endorsed by the majority of students. Most importantly, student bodies and academics need to stop making excuses for Hamas. Those who do should be treated as terrorist sympathizers.
In Oxford University alone there have been 70 reported incidents of anti-Jewish hate in the last eight months - including one student being insulted over their 'Jewish nose'. If universities can’t put a stop to this kind of abuse, then their reputation will be destroyed, especially among the Jewish community. Without realizing it, many universities have been taken over by a hateful far-left ideology that wrongly views Jews as colonizers and oppressors and Muslims/Arabs as oppressed victims, an ideology that sympathizes with terrorists, does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, and supports “mass uprising” against the Jewish state.
Acknowledging this dangerous ideology is the most important step. Only by calling it out and confronting this hatred will it be exposed. As with all things, sunlight is the best disinfectant.