4 min read
I am Jewish. I am left-wing. It doesn't take a genius to see that the left has a problem with Jews. With that one sentence, I've angered vast swathes of the left, ready to condemn me, accusing me of calling them antisemitic. However, it is not as simple as that. With antisemitism, you are able to call out and challenge it. With the left, it is far more insidious. It is a tolerance of bullying and intimidation that makes Jewish students feel unwelcome and unsafe in British universities.
Following the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, the Edinburgh University Student's Association (EUSA) put out an ill-worded statement condemning Israel. A motion was then put forward to the student council, asking EUSA to retract the statement on account of its negative impact on Jewish students. At the debate, Jewish speakers described the fear they experienced when walking through campus and the intimidation they felt when fellow students spoke of their hate and distrust of Jews and Israelis, the two terms becoming synonymous over the summer. The left's response to this was simply to condemn Israel.
That rhetoric won over the room by a significant margin, with more than 150 people cheering when the motion was defeated. When considering it was a motion to defend Jewish students' welfare, little can be left to the imagination.
In Edinburgh later that year, the Students for Justice in Palestine attempted to pass a motion supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement the night before Passover in order to ensure that Jewish students, who are disproportionately affected by BDS, could not challenge it. Although it was successfully stopped, it served as a warning. Had it gone unchecked, Jewish students would have been placed in an even worse position on campus.
With racism, homophobia and misogyny, students rightly come out in force in order to challenge dangerous prejudices and discrimination. However, when Jews voice their concerns it is brushed to the side. Whenever a Jewish concern is raised, the ''Safe Space'' that supposedly protects us is used to silence Jewish voices. This is where the sheer hypocrisy of the Left is most pertinent.
If a Jewish voice is raised in anger, it is often cut down by shouts of ''bully'' or ''Zionist''. We are supposed to stop and think of how others might feel from our criticism instead of challenging our oppressors and their actions. Telling an oppressed group to be quiet would be unacceptable in any other circumstance and would be called ''tone policing'' but, with Jews, it is to be expected.
Liberation is the power of oppressed groups to define their own oppression and then fight it in whatever way they see fit. If we are to accept liberation, which we must, the Jewish voice, like all other oppressed groups, must be allowed to decide its own oppression and how to fight it when it does. The fact that the left chooses to ignore it is nothing short of scandalous.
It would appear that some liberations are more equal than others.
From the student newspaper, where writers attempt to de-legitimise Israel by calling it the "declared state of Israel", marches and protests where they sing "From Jordan to the sea, Palestine will be free" or even discussions of politics where the phrase "I hate Zionists" is routinely used, students are scared to be honest for fear of reprisals. In America, 54 per cent of Jewish students report having been subject or witness to antisemitic abuse. Although this level of antisemitism is nowhere near as prevalent or visible in UK universities, it still occurs far too often.
In November, Izzy Lenga's attempts to highlight an antisemitic incident at the University of Birmingham led to a torrent of online antisemitic abuse, while a EUSA presidential candidate had his posters covered with pro-BDS stickers because of his Jewish background. Clearly, they both seem to have been legitimate targets.
According to Megan Dunn, the president of the National Union of Students, antisemitic attacks have risen by up to 50 per cent since last year, with over 20 per cent of such attacks occurring online. While figures such as Dunn and others in NUS should be applauded for their work, the silence from some of their vice-presidents on these issues is deafening.
The intimidation sometimes takes a darker form. In October, the Leeds Palestine Solidarity Group held a vigil to remember those "murdered by Israel". Included on that list were many who had been killed in the act of attacking Israeli citizens. Calls by LSE students to "stand with the resistance" of attackers led to no reprimands by the student union. These groups actively honoured those that had targeted, attacked and killed Jews. Imagine being Jewish on one of those campuses in the immediate aftermath.
Barely a month after protesters attempted to intimidate students at a King's College Israel Society event, the co-chair of the Oxford University Labour Club resigned following his allegations of antisemitism in the society. The allegations include members singing "Rockets over Tel Aviv", targeting a Jewish student by shouting "filthy Zionist" at her whenever she was near, while one defended Hamas in killing Jewish civilians by claiming that all Jews "were legitimate targets".
The left were quick to defend their views, with some keen to stress their "Jewish roots" and "Zionist friends" while others accused Jews of having "higher privileges" in Labour Students.
The Oxford University Jewish Society said that they were "unsurprised" by recent events.
In a way, I have been exceptionally lucky. My Labour club, Edinburgh Labour Students, could not be more supportive than they already are, and their committee members should be singled out for praise. They have faced abuse, derision and personal attacks over the support they have shown Jewish students and I can offer nothing more than the utmost thanks.
These events are rarely reported on, but Labour Students alongside the Union of Jewish Students have played a critical role in rooting out antisemitism whenever it has reared its ugly head.
Oxford Labour Club may be the exception, but I know where my friends and allies are.
Gabriel Phillips is a student at the University of Edinburgh
