An academic who praised the “heroism” of the October 7 attack is leading a high-profile drive to establish a Palestine Studies course at Cambridge.
The campaign by Makram Khoury-Machool, founding director of the Cambridge Centre for Palestine Studies (CCPS), is backed by the university’s chancellor, Lord Smith of Finsbury, and former archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams, both of whom joined him for an event on Tuesday to argue the case for the course.
Machool, who regularly writes for Al Mayadeen, a Hezbollah-aligned publication based in Beirut, has also previously appeared to blame the Manchester terror attack on British Jews’ support for Israel.
Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott said his involvement in the campaign was “utterly appalling”.
The initiative, which is not officially endorsed by the university, is also supported by Baroness Warsi and Baroness Kennedy.
At Tuesday’s panel event in the city, titled “Why Palestine studies at Cambridge?”, Khoury-Machool was joined by Lord Smith, Lord Williams and Soas Professor Stefan Sperl.
Introducing Lord Williams, who is a CCPS patron, Khoury-Machool described him as “one of the bravest people on earth” when he went “to visit the late Yasser Arafat in his besieged compound”.
Sperl said that Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust centre, should acknowledge the “Nakba”, and claimed that the Shoah has been used to “muffle criticism of Israel’s policies towards [Palestinians] or reject any such criticism as antisemitism”.
He argued that there are “unquestionable parallels between what happened in Palestine and what has been a pattern of European history for the last 500 years.
“A group of people sets out from Europe, conquers a distant territory, declares it to be its property, and subjugates, enslaves, or exterminates its indigenous inhabitants.”
Khoury-Machool attracted controversy following the Manchester terror attack in October last year, when he appeared on BBC Arabic and appeared to blame Jews in the UK for the attack, which left two members of the community dead.
He said at the time: “The Jewish community and the British government cannot treat such an incident in Britain as though it fell from the sky, and suddenly the perpetrator carried out the attack and assaulted a Jewish synagogue.
“The British government must inquire on its own police and statements.”
The academic, who also described the war in Gaza as “cleansocide” or ethnic cleansing and genocide, went on: “When we listen to the Jewish leadership, they either support the Israeli occupation, and most of them do – it is not possible for a British Jewish leader to endorse Netanyahu's crimes and not expect there to be reactions on the British street.”
He blamed the attacker’s grievance on the “extreme slowness of the British regarding a sympathetic response to the Palestinians”.
According to the BBC, he did also “categorically condemn” the terror attack.
Khoury-Machool has also faced criticism for social media posts on the day of the Hamas-led attack on October 7 2023.
On X, he wrote: “Palestinian […] courage, relentless heroism and sacrifice in their road for liberation”.
Three days later, he posted: "The Israeli Jewish brain because of a few thousands [sic] Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza…decided to inflict a Holocaust on 2.3m Palestinians. Is this your ‘Jewish’ morality?”
Laura Trott said Khoury-Machool's “vile and illegal comments have no place in our academic institutions, nor our country.”
“Cambridge must defend open debate, yes, but it must be equally clear and uncompromising in its rejection of antisemitism and the glorification of violence,” she added.
The JC approached the University of Cambridge and Khoury-Machool for comment.
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