The Great Divide

This wall, more than 2,000 miles away, is a potent symbol of the most contentious issue on British campuses.
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The blustery beach front at Blackpool on a chilly bank holiday Monday seems a very long way – geographically and politically – from the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. But the final seaside gathering of the lecturers’ union Natfhe, before its merger with the AUT, will be remembered not for its deliberations on the ongoing university pay dispute, but rather for its decision to implement a boycott of Israeli academics. It is the latest indication that campus politics in the UK are increasingly influenced by the situation in the Middle East.

Under the shadow of Blackpool’s famous tower, lecturers voted for a motion condemning “continuing Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices”, and called for a boycott of any Israeli academics who did not dissociate themselves from their government’s policy in the occupied territories.

The heat generated by the debate drew stinging criticism from around the world and put British academics back in the spotlight – a position they last occupied a year ago, when the other lecturers’ union, the AUT, passed a similar motion, which was subsequently overturned.

But the episode also underlined the increasingly significant role that political events in Israel, Iraq and beyond are having on the lives of lecturers and students in the UK.

For Stephen Rose, the Open University biology professor who kickstarted the boycott campaign with a letter to the Guardian in 2002, the reasons are not hard to fathom. “Quite separately from the debate around the boycott, there has been a huge mobilisation in universities against the Iraq war… You also have a growing number of student Palestinian groups and a highly organised Jewish lobby, which portrays any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. In campus terms, this is an extremely bloody battlefield.”

Pav Akthar, an anti-racism organiser for the National Union of Students, agrees. “There is a lot of activity around Iraq, and the possible invasion of Iran, that is really energising students. We are seeing endless debates and activities triggered by what is happening there.”

The storm unleashed by the boycott row – which reached the Israeli parliament and made headlines across Europe and the US – shows that the obsession with Middle Eastern politics is not confined to students. Academics look set to continue the argument in the newly merged University and College Union.

But for many Jewish and Muslim students, it is more than just a question of academic debate. For them, the fluctuating tensions in the Middle East are having a more direct – and alarming – impact.

Mitch Symmons, campaigns director for the Union of Jewish Students, explains: “Following trigger events in the Middle East, life becomes much more difficult for Jewish students, whether that’s actual abuse or simply the atmosphere that people generate. On campus, people too often assume that because someone is Jewish they agree automatically with everything that happens in Israel and, as tension increases in the Middle East, it triggers more verbal – and, in some cases, physical – attacks on Jewish students.”

Symmons believes the mood on campus changes in direct relation to events unfolding thousands of miles away. “We see things happening sometimes within hours of events taking place in Israel,” he says. “With this sort of backdrop, it can become very difficult indeed for Jewish students to get by day-to-day. It creates an atmosphere where it is acceptable to abuse Jewish people simply because they are Jewish. The main problem is the blurring of the line between extreme anti-semitism and extreme anti-Israeli viewpoints.”

The new Vietnam

Other students are also caught up in the fallout. Muslim students are now one of the biggest and best organised groups on UK campuses, and Wakkas Khan, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (Fosis), says the Middle East is becoming this generation’s Vietnam.

“In terms of activism, it is undoubtedly the thing that gets students most exercised, most energised. What is happening not just in Iraq and Israel, but also in Afghanistan and now Iran, is creating a political awareness and activity that we’ve not had before. It’s a fact that events in that part of the world are having a big impact on what happens on campuses.”

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain agrees there has been a shift in attitudes towards Muslims both inside and outside higher education.

“Making casual anti-Muslim remarks is now deemed acceptable,” he says. “The climate has certainly changed.” He says it is important to distinguish between anti-Israeli comments, based on that country’s current policies, which people are entitled to make, and anti-semitism, which is unacceptable.

Individual students say the situation in the Middle East is leading to a volatile, occasionally hostile, atmosphere. Sam (not his real name), a student at Queen Mary, University of London, says he has noticed an increased tension.

“I think there’s definitely been an increase in anti-semitism on the campus where I am. East London is Bangla town, the heart of the Asian community; there are all types of leaflets around the campus. At freshers’ fair, there were a fair few Islamic societies and organisations, but I don’t remember any Jewish ones.”

One Oxford student had a brick thrown through his window last year because he had an Israeli flag hanging in it. “I understood, when I put it up, that it might disgruntle some people, but I never thought there would be such a response,” he says. “I can’t judge whether it was an anti-Israel attack or an anti-semitic attack.”

Jewish campaigners say the increasing cultural, religious and ethnic mix on university campuses means that they are the perfect arena for these new tensions to be played out. “A lot of people have changed from wearing the traditional skull cap to a baseball cap because of the rise in abuse and assaults,” says Symmons.

“There are groups on campus, particularly some Muslim student organisations, that are putting around 19th-century stereotypes about a Jewish web of control, which they claim runs university life. Others peddle Holocaust-denial theories and call for the state of Israel to be wiped off the map.”

Muslim groups say the success of the British National party in last month’s local elections was a clear indication of a growth of anti-Muslim sentiment. “There is no doubt that that Islamophobia has been made more respectable,” says Bunglawala.

Hot under the collar

According to those in favour of the academic boycott, and those who oppose it, the argument within British academia about how it engages with Israeli universities and academics will run and run. Natfhe’s boycott motion has become an advisory policy to the new union and, although it is not scheduled to be debated again until June next year, its very existence is sure to keep both sides hot under the collar for the next 12 months. Union officials are playing down its importance. “It may well be some time before this is discussed or resolved,” a spokesman told the Guardian. “We have a new union with enough things to occupy it, including the ongoing pay dispute, so I doubt this will be a priority, to be honest.”

But this official serenity belies the Middle East’s ability to inflame passions on both sides, with the anti-boycott campaign gathering pace at UK universities and among online communities around the globe.

According to Fosis, the Middle East will remain at the heart of student politics – at least until there is a dramatic shift in the international situation. “Ultimately,” says Khan, “unless there is a change in the injustice and double standards in British foreign policy, these issues will remain central to students and student politics at universities around the country.”

The Great Divide

This wall, more than 2,000 miles away, is a potent symbol of the most contentious issue on British campuses.
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