Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain will ask university leaders on Thursday to do more to combat anti-Semitism on university campuses, in a sign of growing dissatisfaction within the government over the recent growth of camps set up by students protesting against the war in Gaza.
Vice-chancellors from some of Britain’s leading universities have been invited to Downing Street to discuss the “growing anti-Semitic abuse towards Jewish students in the UK”, Sunak’s office said in a statement issued ahead of the meeting.
So far, Britain has not seen the kind of unrest seen in American universities. But small-scale and largely peaceful protest camps have recently emerged around several universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester.
“Universities must be places of rigorous debate, but also bastions of tolerance and respect for every member of their community,” Sunak said in the statement issued by his office before the meeting. “A vocal minority on our campuses is disrupting the lives and studies of their fellow students and, in some cases, openly spreading anti-Semitic harassment and abuse. “That has to stop.”
The prime minister’s office did not mention specific camps in its statement, but cited concerns from the Union of Jewish Students, which says it represents 9,000 Jewish students in Britain and Ireland. The organization recently said that “while students have the right to protest, these camps create a hostile and toxic atmosphere on campus for Jewish students.”
Downing Street also cited data from a charity that aims to protect British Jews from antisemitism, the Community Security Trust, which in 2023 recorded 182 university-related antisemitic incidents, triple the number recorded in 2022. Tell Mama, a government-funded group that monitors Islamophobic incidents and supports victims, said it has also noticed a recent increase in anti-Muslim incidents on campuses.
While British police have so far not intervened significantly to break up student protests, they have been on the front lines during large-scale pro-Gaza demonstrations, particularly in London.
Last year, Sunak and former home secretary Suella Braverman urged police to ban a march, which eventually went ahead. Ms Braverman was then fired after she described the tens of thousands of people who regularly attended Saturday protests in London in support of the Palestinians as “hate protesters”, “Islamists” and “mobs”, even though the demonstrations had been mostly peaceful. .
On Thursday, the government plans to make clear that universities must take immediate disciplinary action if any student is found to be inciting racial hatred or violence, and must contact the police if they believe a criminal act has been committed, Downing Street said. .
The talks will also aim to help shape new official guidelines on combating anti-Semitism on campus. The government says the Office for Students, a higher education regulator, could also be given the power to impose sanctions if there was clear evidence that universities are not taking sufficient or appropriate action to tackle harassment, including abuse. anti-semitic
Gavriel Sacks, co-president of the Jewish Society of Cambridge University, said in a telephone interview that the group had stepped up its support for students by offering mental health events and movie nights.
Sacks, 20, said anxiety in Cambridge had increased among some Jewish students in recent months, and especially over the past week, after the establishment of a camp on Monday.
But the encampment and the protests themselves had been “mostly peaceful,” he said, and while people had reason to be anxious, he said he still felt safe on campus.
“We don’t want to overdo it or make people more anxious,” he said.
Mr. Sacks said he had been made aware of some anti-Semitic comments made to people identifiable as Jews at rallies. Two Jewish students heading to morning prayer Tuesday were called “pigs,” he said.
“We think it represents the minority,” he said of the anti-Semitic rhetoric. Still, she said, there were concerns.
However, groups representing Jewish students at Cambridge and other campuses have also been among those supporting the pro-Palestinian camps. The SOAS Jewish Society at SOAS University of London, for example, said on social media that it stood “shoulder to shoulder” with classmates who set up camp on Monday.
“We will not stand by while the media cynically uses a false concern for Jewish security to demonize our cause,” the group said.
Professor Deborah Prentice, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, said in a statement that the university was “fully committed to freedom of expression within the law and the right to protest”. She added that the university’s priority remained “the safety of our staff and students. “We will not tolerate anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any other form of racial or religious hatred in our community.”