Student mobilization in support of the people of Gaza reaches the United Kingdom: a handful of tents, along with Palestinian flags and slogans calling for a ceasefire, appeared this week on the lawn of the School of Oriental and African Studies from the University of London. Students, many of them masked, sit in a circle on a blue canvas while others have stockpiled supplies.
Other camps have emerged in a number of British universities, as well as on American campuses. The goal, explains a 23-year-old former student to Agence France-Presse (AFP), is to “put pressure on the administration so that it adheres to the students’ demands,” that is, to reveal ties to companies complicit in what she calls “Israel’s illegal settlement economy and arms trade.”
“Solidarity Camp”
The University of Warwick, in central England, saw the first “Gaza solidarity camp” appear on April 26. The tents then spread around the universities of Newcastle, Edinburgh, Manchester, Cambridge and Oxford. In Edinburgh, a group of students began a hunger strike to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
In a statement, the University of Cambridge said it respected freedom of expression and the right to protest, adding however that it would not tolerate “anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any other form of racial or religious hatred”.
As demonstrations in the United States have sometimes resulted in violence, and Jewish students have expressed concerns about their safety, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to avoid such scenes in the United Kingdom. On Thursday, May 9, he summoned university leaders to discuss the safety of Jewish students and denounced “the unacceptable increase in anti-Semitism” on campuses.
The Community Safety Trust, an association which notably ensures the security of places of the Jewish community, spoke of “an unprecedented level of anti-Semitism” since the Hamas attacks on October 7 and Israel’s response.
“No matter how uncomfortable it is to camp outside.”
SOAS students also received support on Wednesday from the former leader of the Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn. He said the university should “recognize that students have strong, legitimate, valid opinions.” Mr. Corbyn was suspended from the Labor Party in 2020, following an explosive report on anti-Semitism in the ranks of the British opposition party, before being reinstated
One SOAS student told AFP that she, like the others, planned to stay “as long as it takes” for the university to accept their requests. “The first night was really rainy, wet and muddy,” she said. But, honestly, no matter how uncomfortable camping outside is for students, it’s just a fraction of the conditions Palestinians experience in Gaza. »
