Mick Hartley

David Rose at UnHerd:

University College London has issued an “unequivocal apology” following a lecture hosted by the institution’s Justice in Palestine Society which uncritically referred to a 19th century antisemitic blood libel. The lecture on the history of Zionism, given by a “former fixed-term researcher” at UCL, Dr Samar Maqusi — whose profile on the website has since been removed — mentioned the 1840 Damascus Affair, when Jews were accused without evidence of murdering a priest to make bread with his blood.

She wasn’t exactly saying the blood libel was true – was fact, as Nicole Lampert’s tweet suggests – but then again she wasn’t saying it wasn’t true.

In the lecture, Maqusi mentioned that “part of the holy ceremony is that drops of blood from someone who’s not Jewish […] has to be mixed in that bread”. “He was found murdered, and a group of Jews who lived in Syria admitted to kidnapping him and murdering him to get the drops of blood for making the holy bread.”

While Maqusi did caveat the story by saying “do investigate, draw your own narrative”, she failed to mention that the Jews who admitted to the crime did so after being tortured. She also failed to mention that 63 Jewish children were taken from their parents in an effort to make them reveal where the “blood” was being stored. She said nothing to suggest that perhaps the Jews’ confessions might have been unreliable or a result of coercion.

And that wasn’t all.

According to Maqusi, “the Jews pretty much controlled the [world’s] financialisation [sic] structure”. In her view, “a lot of the banks, a lot of the financial infrastructure, was owned by a lot of Jewish families”. It was this, she went on, that persuaded Napoleon Bonaparte to “erect the Jewish kingdom in Palestine under French patronage”. He was helped by “a man called Sir Moses Montefiore”, she said. “He’s a British financier and banker, activist and philanthropist, and he was the Sheriff of London, so we can also start making connections between, um, Britain, and the wealthy Jewish leaders of Britain, who now enters our story.” Critics have noted that Napoleon did not establish the Jewish state, which did not come into existence until 1948, 127 years after his death.

A minor detail. But then facts don’t count for much when you’re fired up with that “Justice in Palestine” zeal.

Added; Seth Mandel at Commentary.

Two lessons from this. One, Western academia is in far worse shape than even its loudest critics allege. This is not about bias or “wokeness” in the classroom; it is about the shattering of intellectual pursuit in America, in Britain, and elsewhere. It is a de-enlightenment.

Two, the Damascus Affair was a major moment in the history of the American Jewish community, which organized multiple protests and turned itself into the shield of the Diaspora. President Martin Van Buren himself intervened, having his secretary of state decry “such barbarous measures” still happening in the world.

Once upon a time Americans believed that the Damascus Affair was more proof of the value of Western Civilization and the rights and norms that came along with it. Western Civilization was the solution, so it was thought, to the persistence of medieval brain rot into the modern era. And now Western educational institutions are the carriers of that brain rot.