London students protest against Israeli Ambassador at LSE event
Students from universities across London protested against Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely’s attendance at a LSE Debate Society event on 9 November.
Image from Brian Liu on flickr
The protestors opposed the university’s platforming of the ambassador, UCL Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) referring to her in their press release as a ‘well-known racist’, who has ‘repeatedly incited hatred against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims’. They argue that these views ‘should not be legitimized in British political spaces’.
A video of the protest has circulated on social media, showing Hotovely exiting the event to a crowd of protesters and being quickly escorted into a waiting car as protesters chant ‘Shame on you’. The event has been characterised as ‘violent’ by many commentators, although this is not evident from the footage. The Met Police confirmed to the BBC that it was investigating a threatening post from an anonymous Instagram account, and no arrests have been made.
Politicians have responded to the event, labelling the protest as anti-Semitic and a threat to free speech. Priti Patel has said she will support police investigation into the protest, saying that ‘anti-Semitism has no place in universities in our country’. Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has said that the protest consisted of ‘unacceptable intimidation’ and that ‘this is not disagreement or free speech. It is harassment and it will have deeply shaken Jewish students at both LSE and across the country’. Michelle Donelan, Universities Minister, is supporting ‘immediate and rapid investigation’ by LSE in response to what she describes as the ‘appalling and anti-Semitic intimidation of the Israeli ambassador’.
These claims were contradicted by Abhijith Subramanian, the vice president of LSE Debate Society, who says that ‘politicians are mischaracterising the event from a short social media clip’. He stated to the BBC that ‘[he] was one metre away from the ambassador throughout the event and did not see any violence or threats’, emphasising that ‘she was secure in the building and the event went as planned’, maintaining ‘freedom of speech’. Both the LSE branch of the University and College Union and the National Union of Students (NUS) have taken a stance in opposition to any disciplinary action for students involved, defending their right to protest.
UCL SJP, which was involved in the protest, argues in their press release that LSE has shown ‘disregard and contempt’ to its students by giving Hotovely a platform. It says that ‘She has claimed Palestinians do not exist, is a virulent Nakba denier, and has openly pushed for the formal annexation of the West Bank and the formalization of a permanent apartheid regime where millions of Palestinians are denied equal political and civil rights to Jewish Israelis’.
Hotovely served as Israel’s Minister of Settlement Affairs in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, advocating the expansion into Occupied Palestinian Territory. When Hotovely was appointed as Ambassador to the UK in 2020, 800 British Jews signed a petition calling for the British Government’s rejection of her nomination. UCL SJP states that Hotovely was ‘contributing to land theft, racial segregation, settler terrorism against Palestinian civilians, environmental destruction, and the violent displacement of Palestinian families who have lived there for generations’, saying that her acts ‘amount to war crimes as defined by international law’.
The society also offers an alternative viewpoint on the events of the protest, claiming that ‘Hotovely did not “flee” the university’, and that the protests remained peaceful. It also claims that ‘the police … incited violence by assaulting a female protestor’.
The conflict of opinion surrounding the protests comes amidst the increased adoption by universities of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s definition of anti-Semitism. The definition has now been adopted by 95 universities, including LSE, UCL and other London universities, increasing from just 28 in September 2020. The definition includes ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor’.
An open letter has been signed by 50 student leaders condemning what they refer to as a ‘volatile and aggressive demonstration’. They suggest that there were ‘chants allegedly calling for the destruction of the State of Israel’. There have been reports that visibly Jewish students were forced to conceal their kipot as they walked past the demonstrators and that attendees of the talk had to walk through the protest as they left. LSE Jsoc and the Union of Jewish Students have issued a joint statement, saying they are ‘concerned for the welfare’ of Jewish students amid the hostile environment of protest.