by Rosa Freedman, spiked
Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have infested British universities.
An easy definition of anti-Semitism is treating Jews as though they are different to other people, whether that is holding them to different standards or discriminating against them. The same is true of the way Israel is treated. If you hold the one Jewish country in the world to different standards than other countries, or if you deny the Jewish people the right of self-determination, then you are anti-Semitic.
Using this base-level definition, it is clear that UK universities are infested with anti-Semitism. Examples of it abound. Last week, University College London (UCL) featured in national headlines after an academic was allegedly recorded preaching anti-Semitism in a speech to students. According to reports, Samar Maqusi, a former researcher at UCL and ex-employee for the UN’s aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, told a seminar that, in 1840, Jews killed a monk in Damascus and used his blood to make food for Passover. That anti-Semitic conspiracy theory was used to torture, displace and murder Jews in Syria and beyond. It is also alleged that Maqusi told students that ‘Jewish families’ ‘pretty much controlled’ international finance, and that Jews exercised the same level of control over the media.
To its credit, UCL acted swiftly against Maqusi. In recent days, UCL also announced that it had re-opened an investigation into a student who supported Hamas’s actions on 7 October 2023.
But UCL’s response to the surge in anti-Semitism stands in contrast to other British universities. Elsewhere, Jewish staff and students have reported incidents ranging from violence and damage to property, to bullying, harassment and exclusion. These have been well documented, and yet very little action has been taken against the perpetrators. A handful of students have been expelled, and only a few more suspended, for anti-Semitism. Silence on staff anti-Semitism has become complicity, giving free reign to direct and indirect discrimination against Jews and Zionists.