Anti-Semitism and the shame of Oxford’s Left wing hate mob
The chairman of the university’s Labour Club has quit, saying the Left has a ‘problem with Jews’. Is it so surprising when Jeremy Corbyn backs terrorists who bomb Israel?
YOU do start to wonder if Oxford University students ever have any time to study anything, given the amount of time they devote to arguing. Most British universities seem to be brimming with outrage these days. But Oxford is out in front. There’s been that furious campaign to topple the statue of Cecil Rhodes, the colonial adventurer who donated a fortune to his alma mater but is now accused of racism.
There have been furious rows, schisms and resignations in Oxford’s feminist, gay and transgender communities. Last term, the militant lesbian in charge of racial awareness had to step down after accusations of sex that was ‘not consensual’.
Everyone seems to be shouting about diversity. Dropping in at the Oxford Union one night this week, I find the illustrious debating society arguing whether to boycott the Oscars ceremony because of the absence of black faces among the main nominations. And the student Left is as strident as anyone can recall, invigorated by the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.
But all of a sudden, amid all the posturing and foot-stomping about discrimination everywhere else in the world, comes a genuine and deeply disturbing racism scandal right here in Oxford.
And it concerns the university’s main Leftwing organisation, the Oxford University Labour Club no less. For these commissars of political correctness now themselves stand accused of blatant anti-Semitism.
This week, the British and Israeli governments along with several Labour MPs voiced serious concerns about a local dispute which raises some very big and awkward questions.
For example, why does Britain’s student Left ‘have a problem with Jews’? And why is Britain at the forefront of a global movement which h claims that ‘the vile and brutal Zionist entity’ ’ of Israel must be ‘stopped at all costs’?
These are the disturbing allegations raised byy Alex Chalmers who, until this week, had been n the energetic co- chairman of the Oxford d University Labour Club (OULC).
It’s an organisation which prides itself onn being Britain’s biggest student Labour club — and which has produced plenty of Cabinetet ministers in its time, not least formerer Labour leader Ed Miliband and many of his cohorts.
But after this week’s foul-tempered meeting, g, during which members endorsed a movementnt which seeks to dismantle the state of Israel,l, Chalmers — who is not Jewish — decided that at enough was enough.
h He resigned from OULC saying that ‘the attitudes of certain members of the club towards certain disadvantaged groups was as becoming poisonous’. And he didn’t hold back. k. He offered plenty of examples.
He accused members of the executive of ‘throwing around the term “Zio” (a term for or Jews usually confined to websites run by the he Ku Klux Klan) with casual abandon’. He spoke of ‘senior members of the clubb expressing their solidarity with h Hamas [the terrorist organisation n which controls the Palestinian n enclave of Gaza] and explicitlyy defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians’.
Chalmers cited the example of a former co-chair claiming that ‘most accusations of anti-Semitism are just the Zionists crying wolf’. Most damning of all was his claim that ‘a large proportion of both OULC and the student Left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews’.
Labour Party HQ might have hoped to put it all down to sour grapes and silly students and wait for the story to die. But it has not. Instead, the Labour Party has now had to instigate a formal investigation — and fast.
For the resignation of Alex Chalmers has prompted hitherto reluctant members of Oxford’s Jewish community to come forward with alarming stories of the new form of anti-Semitism spreading across the campuses of Britain.
‘For a long time, Jewish students have not wanted to make a fuss and just keep their heads down but now they feel it’s time to speak out,’ says Dave Rich, of the Community Security Trust which advises Jewish organisations on self-protection.
‘If this can happen at the Labour club at our most important university, it can’t be ignored.’
The Oxford Jewish Society has applauded Chalmers for speaking out and has produced a catalogue of recent allegations of antiSemitism by Labour Club members. They range from singing “Rockets Over Tel Aviv” to a member who said it was not antiSemitic to talk of a ‘ New YorkTel Aviv axis’ in world politics. This unnamed member also warned: ‘We should be aware of the influence wielded over elections by high-net-worth Jewish individuals.’
More disturbingly, it reported that a Labour member had been formally disciplined by his college for organising a campaign of harass- ment against a Jewish student who was to be called a ‘filthy Zionist’.
Pieced together, it will make uncomfortable reading for mainstream Labour Party supporters.
To make matters worse, a senior member of the OULC, who is Jewish, has described some of the casual racism witnessed at recent Labour meetings.
‘I am not used to eyes being rolled when I start a sentence with “as a Jew”,’ Ellie Taylor told the university newspaper, Cherwell.
‘Last night, however, I witnessed a side to the club which was thoroughly unpleasant and I am increasingly becoming aware of some of the awful outbursts about Jews which have been made over the past 12 months.’
Tough words from a woman who hash j just tb been electedl td women’s’ officer of the very same organisation. Unsurprisingly, some Labour figures have denounced the party’s student branch.
‘Hugely embarrassing,’ says John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw. ‘This is something Jeremy Corbyn should personally look into.’
Ed Miliband has pulled out of an OULC dinner which he was due to address next month. His office has said that he will wait until the results of the internal investigation.
Alex Chalmers’s resignation followed the Oxford University Labour Club’s vote to endorse an extremist worldwide anti-Zionist campaign which launches on Monday.
Israeli Apartheid Week seeks not only to bolster the ‘BDS’ movement (which calls for ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions’ against all things Israeli). It also aims to portray Israel as a white supremacist pariah, like the apartheid- era South African government, because of its ‘colonial’ treatment of Palestinian people.
A glance at the campaign’s map of events planned around the world show that by far the largest concentration is in Britain.
‘The vile and brutal Zionist Israeli entity must be stopped at all costs,’ say the organisers of one London event, likening Israel to Nazi Germany. ‘Their obscene intentions are now clear. They are intent on wiping out the Palestinian race.’
So the Oxford University branch of the Labour Party is now formally affiliated to a movement which wants to break up the state of Israel.
Yesterday, former Labour Club officials joined forces with a crossparty alliance of Oxford students, urging the club to withdraw its support for Israeli apartheid.
When I call the current chair, Noni Csogor, she tells me there are no plans for another vote on the matter. Beyond that, she has no comment.
So where does the Labour leadership really stand on all this?
The disturbing answer is that you don’t have to look hard to find links between organisations supporting Israeli Apartheid Week and Labour luminaries, including Jeremy Corbyn himself.
‘What Jews find worrying is that we’re not talking about some fringe outfit. These people could be the ministers of tomorrow,’ says John, a third-year Jewish student who is a Labour Party supporter, though not one of its current leaders.
‘Jeremy Corbyn has a track record of supporting organisations which create an atmosphere of anti-Semitism.
‘He is the darling of these people. Like so many on the Left, they will say they deplore all forms of antiSemitism, but we’re not talking about old-style anti-Semitism.
‘ It’s not about Nazis running
‘Senior members defend the killing of civilians’ ‘These students could be future cabinet ministers’
through the streets these days. It’s more subtle.’ I am sitting in a cafe on Oxford’s High Street with John and two other Jewish students. John is not his real name.
Along with his friends, he asks me not to identify him as he says he’s had his fill of ‘furtive’ discrimination. ‘It’s got a great deal worse over the past year,’ says his friend, Simon. ‘And the worst of it is on social media.’
They show me several alarming blogs and websites. One website for gay and transgender students recently banned anyone deemed to be ‘Zio’ from its ranks, while one member went as far as advocating the removal of anyone with a Jewish-sounding name.
What would make it all so laughable, if it wasn’t so chillingly hypocritical, is that Israel is one of the only places in the Middle East where these oh- so- righteous custodians of the moral high ground could live without discrimination or worse. Indeed, Tel Aviv has been voted one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world.
Also, the freedoms enjoyed by Israeli women defy comparison with the miserable lives of their counterparts in many of the Muslim countries which surround it.
Anyone setting up an organisation like Oxford’s ‘ Zio’- hating forum for ‘queer and trans’ students in most parts of the Middle East could expect a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
And, in areas controlled by ISIS, they’d be flung from the nearest block of flats faster than they could shout ‘Germaine Greer’.
It is true that Israel has serious questions to answer about its treatment of Palestinians within and without its borders. I have visited the Gaza Strip and seen the effects of the Israeli blockade on everything from health to education.
But I have also seen the piles of shrapnel on the Israeli side where local residents have a matter of seconds to seek shelter every time Hamas fires a rocket at them.
For now, it’s a stalemate. But compared to many of its neighbours — where human rights violations abound — Israel is a beacon of democracy.
It is these double standards which anger Oxford’s Jewish students. ‘We’re not allowed to define our own oppression in the way that other minorities can,’ explains Simon. ‘When someone complains about anti-Semitism, they are belittled and told “it’s not anti-Semitism”.
‘Yet when someone complains about sexism or racism practised against other minorities, it’s instant gospel truth.’
The whole Israel- Palestine debate, he says, has less to do with concerns about Palestinians or Islamic identity and more about Left-wing ideology.
‘Where you stand on Israel is now the litmus test of your political position on a whole range of issues.’
It is a view shared by political analysts such as Tom Gross, a Jewish writer and commentator who studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford with David Cameron.
‘There was none of this sort of stuff back then,’ he says. ‘The Israel apartheid campaign is about demonising a small country which has done very well in protecting minority rights.
‘If the Left focused their anger on human rights abuses in every country, they might have more of a point.’
You don’t have to search hard for talk of ‘Zionist conspiracies’ on Left-wing Oxford University online forums. But the other side of the debate is aired much less.
For example, there is scant discussion of the way in which this global campaign to delegitimise Israel has been driven by the far Left in Britain.
It is detailed at length in a study by Ehud Rosen of the Jerusalembased Centre For Public Affairs. He has explored the rise of the so- called ‘ red/ green alliance’ between ‘red’ socialist and ‘green’ Islamist pressure groups, charting the ever- closer relationship between radical British socialism and hardline Islamism.
It includes a helpful diagram that links Jeremy Corbyn’s beloved Stop The War Coalition to the radical Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist organisations such as Hamas — which Mr Corbyn once called ‘friends’.
Perhaps as Israeli Apartheid Week gets going in the days ahead, Jeremy Corbyn will take the opportunity to clarify the situation: does the Labour Party have a problem with its students — or ‘with Jews’?
For there can no longer be any doubt that an ugly, insidious and deeply disturbing new strain of anti-Semitism is taking root among the far-Left in Britain’s universities.
Mr Corbyn and his party need to decide where their true loyalties lie.
An insidious, ugly attitude is taking root