The annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) was moved online following the outbreak of covid-19 but with lockdown measures been lifted in the UK, campaign groups like Palestine Solidarity Campaign is holding a number of debates and rallies in the month of March. A well-planned anti-Israel program has been put in a place all marked by allegations that Israel is an “apartheid state” and that the Israeli government oppresses Palestinians in a manner comparable to the repression of the Black majority in apartheid South Africa.
The first IAW was held at the University of Toronto in 2005, and ever since the IAW has organised thousands of annual university lectures and demonstrations in hundred cities around the world. According to its supporters “the aim of IAW is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement”.
In recent years, IAW programs have served as a platform for strategizing about BDS campaigns against Israel. Speakers at these events often call for various boycotts on Israel, including academic and cultural boycott and on boycotting companies that do business with Israel. There have also been several incidents where hateful rhetoric including expressions of anti-Semitism and support for terrorist organizations that target Israeli civilians have been propagated during IAW events.
The spokesperson for the Union of Jewish Students (USJ) said “We understand the importance of protest and free speech but when it comes to Israel Apartheid Week, year on year we see it creates a hostile environment on campus for Jewish students. The week aims to promote division and polarises communities, rather than focussing on dialogue and building consensus and cooperation around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
Speakers at IAW conferences and rallies often portray a one sided narrative, in where the Palestinians positioned as victims of Israeli oppression. One of those speakers is Ben White the author of “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide”. In one of those IWA panel discussion White once said he could “understand” why people were anti-Semites.
White has also engaged in anti-Semitic strategies, including comparing Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. He further claimed that Palestinians endured “death marches” at the hands of the Israeli government. He defended the former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s infamous remarks denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” White claimed that Ahmadinejad’s call for Israel’s destruction had “more ambiguity than most allowed” and argued that a head of state should not be threatened with diplomatic sanction “for his beliefs.” On a number of occasions White supported and justified Hamas rockets attacks on Israeli civilians.
THE UK NATIONAL UNION OF STUDENTS
NUS has announced its backing and “standing solidarity’ with activists planning to smear Israel as an “apartheid state” during IAW. The spokesperson for the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) is disappointing over NSU decision, adding: “We can’t answer for why they have chosen to support this week, however doing this alienates Jewish students and prevents NUS from being a space of openness and inclusion (…) Over the past few years there has been a consistent desire by Jewish students and UJS to actively campaign against the BDS movement in all its forms, as it is a divisive and hostile tactic that causes harm rather than focusing on dialogue and peace.”
The series of events has led to Jewish students in the UK being subjected to abuse, intimidation and threats, as well as campus demonstrations. Pro-Palestinian activists regularly intimidate and harass Jewish and pro-Israel students and have violently disrupted campus events. Like those deeply disturbing protests seen at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Cambridge University. The treatment of Israel’s Ambassador to the UK, Ms. Tzipi Hotovely, were criticised as completely unacceptable and disgusting by several British government ministers including Home Secretary Priti Patel and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
It’s fair to argue that the UK National Union of Students should have not given a backing to an event that aims to foster division, hatred and violence. The IAW has a hateful agenda and it comes to no surprise that many Jewish and non-Jewish students feel that antisemitism is a huge problem at universities, making Israel Apartheid Week particularly problematic.
UK ANTI-SEMITISM HIT RECORD HIGH
Nationally, across the whole year, the Community Security Trust (CST) a charity that protects British Jews from antisemitism and related threats. Recorded 2,255 anti-Jewish hate incidents reported nationwide in 2021. This is the highest annual total that CST has ever recorded and is a 34% increase from the 1,684 anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2020.
Of those were 128 anti-Semitic incidents in where the victims or offenders were students or academics, or involved student unions or other student bodies, compared to 44 incidents of this type in 2020. This is the highest number of university-related incidents that CST has ever recorded in a calendar year. However, the spokesperson for the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) believe the number could be even higher “as with all hate crimes, antisemitism is under reported and there will be other types of incidents that we are unaware of.”
UJS leads on a variety of campaigns aimed to educate and raise awareness of antisemitism, to different groups within the campus community. The spokesperson for the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) however believes “the first key step all institutions must take is adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, to demonstrate to their Jewish students that they take antisemitism seriously and are committed to fighting it.”
Already more than half of UK universities adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, but the adoption requires serious commitments. Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi was right when he pointed out in January this year that the adoption of IHRA should not be just a “tick-box exercise”.
“There is no reasonable excuse for anyone to espouse hatred towards a minority, and Jews are no exception. It is perfectly possible to be a vocal critic of the State of Israel without falling into antisemitism and the IHRA definition of antisemitism is an excellent guide to use” says the spokesperson for the Union of Jewish Students (UJS).
