The anti-Israel events that will be held on campuses worldwide in the coming month are just a thinly disguised manifestation of ugly anti-Semitism, an Oxford graduate says.
By: Lea Speyer/The Algemeiner and United with Israel Staff
“Anti-Zionism has become a fig leaf for ugly Jew-baiting,” a recent graduate of the University of Oxford wrote on Thursday.
In an op-ed in the UK’s The Telegraph, Richard Black attributed the “barrage of verbal, physical and visual onslaughts” against Jewish students to the content and spirit of programs such as those currently taking place across campuses worldwide as part of “Israeli Apartheid Week” (IAW).
Ahead of events like IAW — which includes mock Israeli checkpoints and boycott campaigns — Jewish students “probably [feel] not at all dissimilar to how Medieval Jews felt when they dreaded the prospect of an irate Mendicant friar expounding on Jewish iniquities in the days leading up to Good Friday,” he wrote.
Israeli Apartheid Week is a series of annual anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) events held during February and March at universities around the world, which are fraught with lies about the Jewish state.
This BDS-sponsored initiative is replete with lectures and protests that ostensibly aim to condemn Israel and its policies regarding the Israeli-Arab conflict.
In a region of dictatorships and theocracies, Israel has established one of the most robust and free democracies in the world, safeguarding the rights of Jews, Muslims and Christians, and ensuring that its Arab citizens enjoy full and equal rights before the law. These crucial points are “overlooked” during IAW.
This week, the UK’s Jewish News reported, a bishop from the Church of England called IAW “neither helpful nor constructive,” saying it has “become a source of great tension between Jewish students and others on UK campuses” — leaving the former “feeling intimidated, vulnerable and insecure at a time of rising antisemitism in the UK and beyond.”
On Wednesday, in response to concerns raised about IAW, British Prime Minister Theresa May called on her country’s universities to “investigate and swiftly address” campus anti-Semitism.
“Higher education institutions have a responsibility to ensure that they provide a safe and inclusive environment for all students, and we expect them to have robust policies and procedures in place to comply with the law,” May said during the traditional weekly Prime Minister’s Questions Parliament session.
Members of leading advocacy groups in the UK recently told The Algemeiner that they were gearing up to “proactively” counter these events, and the country’s former chief rabbi, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, released an animated video on Monday to arm students with tools to confront anti-Israel trends.
The University of Central Lancashire has cancelled an Israel Apartheid Week event on its campus because of its anti-Semitic orientation.
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Source: United with Israel
