Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Gavin Gross, a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), part of the University of London, who has been threatened with disciplinary action for standing up against anti-Semitism on campus.
FP: Gavin Gross, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Gross: Thank you, Jamie.
FP: Mr. Gross, before we get to your personal case, let’s get a little bit of a background. How did you end up in this situation?
Gross: I recently left a finance job in London to return to university for a Master’s degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies. As you have said, I’m at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), part of the University of London. It bills itself as the world’s largest centre for the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. SOAS has a long-standing reputation for radical student politics, and this manifests itself in extreme anti-Israel hostility which has spilled over into acts of anti-Jewish hatred.
I am also an officer of the SOAS Jewish Society, which I helped recreate, as it did not exist on campus for the last few years.
FP: Go into a bit of detail for us about the conditions under which Jewish students live at SOAS.
Gross: First, we are a very small minority as many Jewish students choose to stay away from SOAS. They believe it is an uncomfortable campus for a Jew to attend, particularly if one professes support for Israel and Zionism. SOAS has around 3,200 students from more than 100 countries, and roughly 45% of students come from outside the UK and EU, many from the Arab countries of the Middle East and the wider Muslim world. The largest and most active student group is the Palestine Society, which regularly holds extremist events such as its “Resisting Israeli Apartheid” conference in December 2004 that, beyond making parallels with South Africa, claimed Israeli actions were similar to those of the Nazis in that they committed genocide against the Palestinians.
Second, anti-Zionism is the official policy of the Students Union, which passed a motion several years ago saying that peace requires the elimination of Zionism and racial discrimination in all its forms, and condemning any form of Zionism on campus, inspired by the UN’s notorious 1975 resolution. This motion was used for a long time to prevent the creation of an Israel Society, even though Israeli and other students wanted one, on the grounds that it would by definition be a racist society and racism is not permitted on campus.
Following this logic, the Students Union voted to ban the Jewish Society from allowing Roey Gilad, political counsellor of the Israeli Embassy in London, to speak on campus in February 2005 in a talk entitled “New Opportunities for Middle East Peace”, arguing that they did not want to offer a platform to “racists”, i.e. Israeli officials. The SOAS administration stepped in and ruled that the talk must go ahead, which it did, but not until a malicious fire alarm was set by protesters and the front glass door of the building was smashed, causing an evacuation and a 45-minute delay. The administration also forced the Union this year to allow the first-ever SOAS Israel Society, though the “Zionism is racism” motion still stands as policy.
FP: So how do you rate SOAS’s administration in protecting Jewish students?
Gross: I give credit to the administration for ensuring that an Israel Society could form and that an Israeli Embassy official could speak, which in any case should be routine for a university, but for many of the other problems regarding Jewish students the administration has taken a hands-off approach. Their publicly stated argument has been that SOAS (the School) and the SOAS Students Union are two entirely separate legal entities, which is a common structure in Britain, and thus the Union itself is responsible for its actions and those of its student societies. They have pushed Jewish students to complain directly to the Union officers, ignoring the fact that it is likely impossible for the Union to fairly investigate problems which it might have created in the first place.
I suspect another reason the administration is reluctant to intervene more forcefully may be a financial one. Foreign students pay three times as much in tuition as EU students, and thus SOAS needs to ensure its revenue streams from foreign Arab and Muslim students continue. In addition, Arab institutions and governments help fund research centres and professorships at SOAS. As British universities are always strapped for cash, the administration may not want to jeopardise the funding it receives. I do not know the precise figures or the extent of foreign financial support of SOAS - it would require an investigative journalist to do some work - but many people have voiced to me their impression that SOAS is dependent on money from the Arab world.
This year there have been many stories in the national British press about anti-Jewish hostility at SOAS, and now the administration is showing greater concern and is hopefully more willing to take disciplinary action. The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the oldest Anglo-Jewish communal organisation, recently delivered a dossier about campus events to the SOAS Director and insisted that he investigate possible infringements of the University’s own codes of conduct.
FP: Ok, tell us your own personal experience. What happened?
Gross: I was threatened with disciplinary action in a letter sent by the Director of SOAS, Prof. Colin Bundy, which I took to be a warning against my public criticism of the School. So did the Jerusalem Post, which was shown a copy of the letter and ran a story headlined “Student warned by his UK college to stop protesting anti-Semitism.”
The letter referred to three specific examples of my conduct that the Director felt might contravene the School’s code of practice, all of which I feel are groundless.
First, I had written to Sir Joseph Hotung, a donor who set up a Programme in Law, Human Rights and Peace Building in the Middle East at SOAS. I informed him of the programme’s activities this year, which I felt to be unbalanced and presented solely from the Palestinian viewpoint. Here is the full list of events undertaken at the time of my letter. The programme had co-sponsored a major conference about Edward Said, the Palestinian intellectual and fierce opponent of Israel; presented a talk by Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian legislator; held three different seminars about the illegality of Israel‘s security barrier according to the UN’s International Court of Justice; and a seminar examining Palestinian refugee claims. I told Sir Joseph that I had attended several of these events, and in my opinion the programme had become simply a forum for Israel bashing and pro-Palestinian advocacy, operating under the guise of an impartial academic legal centre.
For instance, in a seminar on Israel’s security barrier, the head of the Hotung programme and another Hotung scholar spent 50 minutes detailing the hardships to the Palestinians from the security barrier’s construction, and its illegality under international law, without ever mentioning the sustained, deliberate suicide bombings from those same West Bank towns that killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians in the past four years - Israel’s stated reason for building the barrier. When questioned afterwards why this fact was not raised, Prof. Iain Scobbie, the Hotung director, told me that they only had a limited time to speak.
In my letter I asked Sir Joseph, if he believed the programme was not living up to its goal of promoting law, human rights and peace building in the Middle East, to reconsider his future involvement. I saw this as my entirely legitimate right to express an opinion; the SOAS director saw it as bringing the School into disrepute.
Second, I had emailed Prof. Bundy criticising him for remaining silent on the charges of anti-Jewish behaviour at SOAS, which had been widely publicised in the media. I suggested that he make an announcement that the School was determined to deal with the problems of Jewish students on campus, and to reiterate that the School welcomed Jewish students and encourage them to apply. In the absence of this, I worried that SOAS might become “Judenrein” like German universities in the 1930’s, and wondered whether this was what the School’s financial backers in the Middle East wanted. I later apologised for the inappropriate language I may have used, but said that the sentiments I expressed were entirely legitimate. Prof. Bundy felt that my email was unacceptable and offensive, and warranted investigation.
Finally, and most absurdly, I was criticised for sending an email informing other students of a notice on the SOAS website that Prof. Bundy had resigned and was leaving in summer 2006, and genuinely questioning whether or not this had anything to do with the failure of the administration to treat the problems of Jewish students seriously. The UK’s Guardian newspaper wrote a story the next day entitled “SOAS head resigns after five years”, also bringing up the criticism of SOAS by Jewish students. The immediate reaction of almost everyone I spoke to, when they heard the news of Prof. Bundy’s departure, was to ask whether this was related to the School’s problems. However, Prof. Bundy took great exception to my email. In his letter he pointed out that he had not resigned, as I claimed, but that he was leaving at the end of his contract, which he did not seek to renew. Remember, the Guardian also used the word “resigns” in their headline. As well, he criticised me for my speculative comments as to the reason for his departure, saying that they were highly prejudicial to SOAS’s reputation. My email is one of the incidents which he said warranted an investigation, though I took his reaction as that of someone who is clearly very upset that people have speculated on a link between his leaving SOAS and the incidents regarding Jewish students.
Your readers should remember that SOAS has this year seen an extremist film played in the SOAS Union which called Jewish prayer “satanic” and Jews evil and immoral, and a speaker who said that the burning down of synagogues was a rational act - without any vigorous response from the School. In the remainder of Prof. Bundy’s letter threatening me with disciplinary action, he stresses, as I mentioned before, that SOAS and the Students’ Union are entirely separate legal entities, and that legal principles restrict the framework within which SOAS must operate in its dealings with the Union. While refusing to take immediate action against the abuses in the Union, Prof. Bundy felt it urgent enough to threaten action against me for the three incidents described above.
FP: Why do you think the university campus is a breeding ground for anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism?
Gross: I think the anti-Americanism is probably of the usual standard variety, where the Socialist Workers Party stands on campus in front of a huge picture of George W. Bush proclaiming him the world’s number one terrorist. I haven’t been on an American campus in a while (I’m originally from New York City), but I suspect you would see the same sort of activity.
The greater problem is the anti-Jewish hostility on campus, which flows from the virulent anti-Zionism routinely expressed. I am reluctant to brand the entire School, Union or student body as anti-Semitic, because most people are interested only in learning and finishing their degrees, but it is certainly true that SOAS has repeatedly provided a forum for the expression of the worst kinds of anti-Jewish racism.
For instance, in February 2005, a film called “Jerusalem, the Promise of Heaven” was shown in the Students Union lounge, which showed pictures of bearded Orthodox Jews praying in synagogue and at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, while the voice-over branded Jewish prayer rituals “satanic” and stated that Jews had no ethics or morals. A copy of this same film was found in the suitcase of Saajid Badat, a terrorist convicted in the UK, along with his plans to blow up an airliner, and appeared in a picture in The Times newspaper following his arrest.
In addition, in March 2005 the Palestine Society invited the extremist anti-Zionist figure Gilad Atzmon, a former Israeli who now lives in the UK, to speak on campus. He was reported to have referred to the “Jew-nited States of Jew-merica” to suggest that America is controlled by the Jews, and said he wanted to call his new book “the Monologues of the Elders of Zion” after the notorious anti-Semitic forgery “Protocols”, but his publisher objected. Most worryingly, he reportedly said that the burning down of synagogues must be viewed as a rational and political act against perceived Jewish and Zionist control in the world.
In the same month, the Students Union decided to hold a meeting to elect Ken Livingstone, London’s sometimes demented Mayor, to the newly created post of honorary SOAS Union President, a post which SOAS had survived without since its founding in 1916. This honour for the Mayor came at the precise time that he was under attack for referring to a Jewish reporter for London’s Evening Standard newspaper as a Nazi concentration camp guard and refusing to apologise. The Mayor had also just claimed in the Guardian newspaper that Israel ethnically cleansed the Palestinians in 1948 and that Ariel Sharon was a war criminal. The Students Union decided to honour the Mayor not in spite of these actions, but precisely because of them, as a deliberate insult to Jewish students. When I objected to the Mayor’s election and proposed Nelson Mandela instead, I was personally abused and subjected to verbal attacks on the Zionist and Mossad conspiracy to damage the Mayor, the Zionist press, and apartheid Israel. This was not a debate on the Middle East, but an election for an honorary campus role, yet it shows the pathological obsession and hatred some students have for Israel and the Jews.
Finally, a student named Nasser Amin wrote an article in March 2005 in the Union’s magazine, SOAS Spirit, entitled “When Only Violence Will Do”, which claimed that the entire state of Israel (pre-1967) was a colony that should be dismantled, supported the killing of Israeli civilians, and chillingly proposed that Zionists everywhere must be exposed. I quote: “The oft repeated view that Israeli victims of Palestinian violence are mainly ‘innocents’...faces the easy objection that those who benefit from the immoral actions of a colonial state in which they have chosen to reside cannot be considered as innocent.” He goes on to say that all Israeli adults serve in “an imperialist-terrorist organisation, the IDF” and that “by choosing to raise their children in a colony at war with an indigenous people,” the Israelis jeopardise the lives of their own families.
I believe that a complaint was made to the Metropolitan Police department in London regarding the SOAS Spirit article and the Gilad Atzmon event, and that they are now investigating the matter. The incidents at SOAS demonstrate that, while not all criticism of Israel is anti-Jewish, it is often the case that extreme anti-Zionist sentiment is merely a cover for hatred of the Jewish people.
FP: So what is going to happen in your case and what are your own personal plans in this context? What recommendations do you have in terms of what can be done to combat anti-Semitism at SOAS?
Gross: I look forward to returning to SOAS next academic year to finish my MA, and plan to continue to speak out whenever I see evidence of anti-Jewish hatred on campus. The Director has serious problems to deal with regarding the conduct of the Students’ Union, and I don’t think he will actually carry out his threat to investigate me, as everyone would view it as a personal vendetta because I brought these problems to light and dared to criticise the School. Perhaps he now feels his letter to me was a mistake.
As for recommendations, there are two tools we need to be aggressive about using at SOAS and on any other campus in Britain or the States - information and the law.
Regarding information, I mean we need to ensure that all universities have a Jewish Society and an Israel Society, and that these groups regularly put on events about the whole range of Jewish experience - history, culture, religion, philosophy, Israel, etc. I think it is particularly important to target non-Jewish students for these events, who may be genuinely curious about Jews, Judaism and Israel but lack knowledge about them. For instance, at SOAS we have about 80 members of the Jewish Society, the vast majority of them non-Jewish. This year we had a talk by an Egyptian-born Jew about growing up in Cairo, and a lecture about Iraqi Jews who, in the 19th century, settled in India and Shanghai where they built great trading companies. Many students had no idea that Jews had ever been in those countries, and in some nations of the Middle East were resident 1,000 years before the arrival of Islam. We also had a Hanukkah party with a explanation by an Orthodox rabbi, and a talk by a prominent Jewish politician, now in the House of Lords, whose father was an immigrant from Eastern Europe and who grew up in the East End of London. The Israel Society showed several current Israeli films, completely non-political, and threw an excellent Yom Ha’atzmaut party (Israeli Independence Day) with falafel, humous, Israeli wine and Israeli music. These events were all very well attended and received, and they gave the students, many of whom have little or no contact with Jews in their home countries, a sense of what Jews are about.
Specifically regarding Israel, and academics who distort the truth about the Israel-Palestine conflict, there is certainly a need to answer and rebut their false charges. However, this has to come from other academics or think tanks, as I don’t think students are necessarily always qualified to engage in scholarly debate with the anti-Zionist academic crowd. But students can do Israeli politics events on campus. Our most successful event by far was the talk given by the Israeli Embassy minister Roey Gilad, which had 180 people packed into the lecture hall and another 100 refused entry because there was no more space. Before being posted to the UK, he had spent four years in the Embassy in Amman, Jordan and was fluent in Arabic. We had an open meeting with a mix of students, including Muslim women in head coverings, and Mr. Gilad took hostile questions from an Islamic Society officer, an Egyptian student, and a Lebanese student. He succeeded in forcefully presenting Israel’s viewpoint, and dealing with those hostile questions, but did so in a very personal manner where he also admitted to mistakes Israel had made in past. The contrast with the nonsense that comes out of the mouths of Arab diplomats from authoritarian, non-democratic countries was understood by all present, and the event went a tremendous way towards humanising Israel and the Middle East conflict for students. Many months later people are still talking about this event, and I’d like to invite the minister back to speak again next year.
As for using the law, all universities have codes of conduct and rules against discrimination and intimidation. At SOAS, as part of its equality and diversity policy, there is an anti-harassment rule against words or actions that are intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive. By using the university’s own language in their rules, and then highlighting hate events on campus that contravene these very rules, one can push for action to be taken against offenders. An important part of this is monitoring hostile events on campus, taking detailed notes, and circulating the information to the university administration, the Jewish community, and in some cases to the media. In addition, beyond the university there are laws in Britain covering race relations, public order, and incitement to racial hatred, for example, which may be used against incidents of campus hatred. Students must work with communal leaders for such legal and other help if they need it, and Jewish organisation must not be afraid of taking action if required. In the case of Jewish students at SOAS, we have had great help from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Union of Jewish Students, and the Community Security Trust.
My final thought is that, unfortunately in Britain and perhaps in the States too, often Jews take the view that complaining about the situation will only make it worse, and therefore they prefer to keep their head down and stay silent. Needless to say, I completely disagree with this. The situation is already bad, and pretending otherwise is no solution. We need to expose what is occurring on our campuses, Jews and non-Jews together, and fight to make sure that Jewish students can attend any campus, and express their religious or political views, without fear of abuse and intimidation. It’s a struggle I’m sure we can win.
FP: Thank you for joining us today Mr. Gross. We wish you all the best in your courageous work and activism. Take care.
Gross: Thanks for inviting me.
