Mick Hartley

From the Telegraph:

Students who have raised concerns over anti-Semitism at Oxford University have been told they should leave, a letter from staff and students claims.

The letter, sent to Prof Irene Tracey, the university’s vice-chancellor, as well as deans and proctors, claims that there has been a lack of aid and sympathy for Jews, who face harassment and a hostile environment on campus.

The letter, whose signatories wish to remain anonymous, also accused the university of promoting “conspiratorial narratives”, as well as failure in reporting procedures in the past seven months.

They claim the university is becoming a “no-go area” for Jews and Israelis and that when some individuals raised concerns to their heads of programmes, they were “simply advised to leave Oxford”.

The letter, seen by The Telegraph, states: “We have felt isolated, unsafe, targeted, stressed, disappointed, angry and hopeless. Many of us have faced all manners of anti-Semitic slurs.”

It also details a list of 70 incidents that are alleged to have occurred since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct 7.

The letter says a group of students told a Jewish student that “the Jews control the American government”, “Jews are everywhere”, and that they had “a Jewish nose”.

In another incident, the signatories said: “In vigils for the [Israeli] hostages, university members, mainly students, shouted at us, told us we are kid murderers, that we are spreading conspiracy theories and ‘Zionist propaganda’, and they vandalised our displays for the hostages. In fact, almost every time we did such a display, it was vandalised by organised groups from the university.”

They also claim that calls for violence are constantly heard in pro-Palestinian protests in Oxford, such as calling for the elimination of the Jewish state, “Palestine from the river to the sea”, “Intifada”, “the resistance is justified”, “globalise the Intifada”, “Israel is a terror state”, “From Oxford to Gaza: long live the Intifada”, “Israel, Oxford, USA, how many kids did you kill today?”.

It rhymes! So clever. A copy, of course, of the old Vietnam protest chant "Hey hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" But with considerably less force. It's all tawdry and secondhand – and powered by the usual antisemitic tropes.

The letter, which was sent last week, states: “Those places at the university, sometimes during working hours, became a no-go area for most Israelis and Jewish for seven months now.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Jewish student who is one of the letter’s authors, said: “This has been an issue since October and the university has not addressed anything or given any resources to dealing with this.

“There seems to be a problem regarding the academic information given out by the university on the matter of Jewish and Israeli people. Faculty members and hosted speakers feel comfortable to really spread misinformation without any type of monitoring from the university or any type of response. This just creates this mentality where people feel comfortable to tell other Jewish students that they control the banks and that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist – and this is Oxford University.”