I felt unsafe, my supervisor brushed it off and told me to read the work of a US academic known for their strong anti-Israel views.
“There is no breathing room or escape. Only one narrative is acceptable.”
Anonymous, University of Exeter:
"It’s been very difficult. A member of staff said during a webinar that Israeli women weren’t raped on October 7 because they were inherently the oppressor so could not be a victim. I was also denied the right to write in our campus paper about October 7, despite pro-Palestinian pieces being on the front page every week.
“Me and other students were surrounded and harassed by hundreds of people at our stall on campus. They claimed we were responsible for their families dying and that we weren’t real Jews. The university took no action.”
Harry, University of Oxford:
“My great-uncles were tied to train tracks in Egypt before being expelled. Israel was their only sanctuary. My great-grandmother was born in Jerusalem. Yet there’s no room for narratives like these in Oxford. Rather, the myopic focus is on Israel as a uniquely European project.
“Even soon after October 7, I heard people say, ‘We only let them [Jews/Israelis] get away with it because of what happened during the war, meaning the Holocaust.’
“The mentality of the encampment is to sideline opposing views as mere political disagreements. For them, the allegation of genocide is enough for it to be real. For me, my lived experience of antisemitism is erased.”
The number of students unwilling to give their names tells its own story.
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