Why we need to keep on marching against antisemitism

On October 7, Jewish students tried to mourn those murdered on that day a year earlier in Israel – many of them their age. But their commemorations did not pass without incident.

At UCL, protesters called for Intifada and chanted: “From the river to the sea”, forcing students to use side entrances and fear attending lectures. At Queen Mary, students surrounded a vigil, chanting “Globalise the intifada”, with at least one Jewish student being followed home to shouts of “F*** Israel”.

At King’s, chants for the eradication of Israel; at SOAS, signs calling the Jewish state a “baby killer” and threats that “You will never be free of us until Palestine is free of you!” ; at Goldsmiths, chants of “From Gaza to Beirut, all our martyrs we salute” and “When people are occupied, resistance is justified”; at London Met, an effusive eulogy for the leader of Hamas published by a lecturer; at a Jewish student party, an Israeli flag burned by a gatecrasher.

And that’s just London. There was also the swastika etched onto the Chabad student centre at Oxford, the abusive stickers at Newcastle and Edinburgh Universities, the Cardiff student union representative “joking” about bullying Zionists and the abuse of a Nova massacre survivor at Birmingham.

The list goes on – and these incidents all took place subsequent to the “Tentifada” encampments being erected at universities across the country.

But it’s not just on campuses. Over the past year, antisemitic hate crime has quadrupled, and Jews are now the most targeted faith minority in the country, despite our minuscule numbers.

The figures for the general population’s attitude towards Israel are bad, but among young people, they are dire.

As our polling of the British public, conducted by YouGov, showed, one third of British people believe that Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews, a view which is antisemitic according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism. This is the highest figure that we have ever recorded in our polling. But the figure rises to a shocking 48 per cent — nearly half — of 18 to 24-year-olds.

Almost one in five British people believe that Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media, a figure that rises to one third among 18 to 24s.

Nearly one fifth of young people do not believe that Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people, compared to just under one in ten of the British public overall. Almost a quarter of the general population think that Israel and its supporters are a bad influence on our democracy. Among young people, the figure is a staggering 43 per cent.

It is not just antisemitism as expressed in relation to the Jewish state. Classic anti-Jewish tropes are also more prevalent among British youth. For example, one in ten people in Britain believe that, compared to other groups, Jewish people have too much power in the media. Among 18 to 24 year olds, this rises to 16 per cent.

With antisemitism and extremist propaganda rampant on social media, antisemitic activist-academics posing as scholars, trade unions and activist groups looking to penetrate schools, countless reports of radical religious rhetoric in mosques and a biased mainstream media that regularly platforms terrorist-sympathisers and fawns over “peaceful” protesters and activists who criminally damage property, is it any wonder that British schools and campuses look how they do?

But we know that the situation is bad. The real question for us, as a community, is what we are going to do about it. At Campaign Against Antisemitism, we have dedicated staff who assist students when incidents arise on their campuses, and we regularly provide antisemitism training to university societies on request, as we do to public bodies, companies, charities and others.

We provide free legal representation and litigate when necessary. We also have a considerable following across multiple social media platforms and a podcast, through which we reach young audiences to try to counter what they are hearing elsewhere and give encouragement to young Jews and their allies.

We have repeatedly written to university chancellors and organised open letters, petitions and protests, and, where appropriate, submitted complaints to regulators regarding students qualifying in regulated professions. We have also engaged with the Office for Students and the Department for Education and made policy recommendations to ministers.

All this is to say nothing of our work on policy and policing, identification of antisemites, innovative awareness-raising campaigns and many other projects.

But all of this only works when the authorities – the government, police and CPS, university administrations, headteachers, media executives and others – understand that our intolerance for surging antisemitism is not just our view, but the community’s view – and that it is very strongly held.

To that end, we are asking everyone to join us at 1pm this Sunday to march in central London once again.

Last year, the March Against Antisemitism united our community and its organisations and drew more than 100,000 people in the largest gathering against antisemitism since Cable Street.

Now, after an unimaginably dreadful year of unprecedented levels of Jew-hate, we must march again. We cannot assume that, without collective action by British Jews and our friends, our country will settle back into its tradition of tolerance and decency – particularly given the radicalisation of young people in our country.

If we don’t stand up to extremism, it will win.

We owe it to ourselves and our children – and to wider British society – to fight for our future.

We hope that you will march with us.

Please go to antisemitism.org/march or click here for details

Gideon Falter is chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism