STEPHEN GLOVER: In their face masks and keffiyehs, I found Oxford’s Gaza protesters menacing and cult-like – if I were a Jewish student, I’d be afraid

Half a mile from my home in Oxford is a so-called ‘liberated zone’, where pro-Palestinian students have set up a camp of about forty tents.

Yesterday morning I visited the camp, which is spread out on a large lawn at the University of Oxford, opposite the Pitt Rivers Museum. It has become waterlogged and is littered with folded black garbage bags, which I fear may have contained feces.

A student brochure claims that the “infamous” museum, which “acquired its artifacts from around the world through imperial expansion, reflects the ongoing struggle of the Palestinian people and [sic] us to colonized people’. You get the message. These are strange people.

Pro-Palestinian student protests flared up in America last month. They have now spread across the Atlantic and are taking hold in Oxford, Cambridge and a number of other British universities.

In principle, I like the idea of ​​’liberated zones’. But you would be hard-pressed to find a place less liberated than this camp, decorated with Palestinian flags. There are banners accusing Israel of genocide and labeling Israel as an apartheid state.

This is an area of ​​sectarian prejudice and intolerance, where about half of the students wore masks to hide their identities. Many, the majority of whom were white, wore Arabic keffiyehs on their heads.

Where will this latest American cultural import go? Will it disappear when summer comes and the students disperse? Or will it grow in scale and end in a confrontation with the university authorities who, as we will see, cannot possibly meet the students’ demands, even if they so desperately want to?

At first glance, the camp does not seem like a particularly threatening place. Clusters of students were chatting. Sleeping bodies could be seen in a few pop-up tents. One student gave a quiet speech summarizing Israel’s latest shame. There was a generally listless atmosphere.

There were no police present. There was also no evidence that Jewish or other students organized a counter-protest.

The students I approached were polite and hospitable. But when they heard I was a journalist, the shutters came down and in some cases claws were shown.

An American postgraduate student objected to my writing for the Mail. She was apparently upset by a piece on Mailonline about Kendall Gardner, a fellow American postgraduate and organizer of the protest, who has previously posted photos of her rather ample bikini body on social media.

My American student—not Kendall, who was possibly sulking in her tent—declared that she didn’t like me “at all.” She added that I was ‘privileged’ to be able to look around the camp. I told her I had lived in Oxford for thirty years (she had three years). I might have added that this was college country.

When I asked her how long the protest would last, she replied that they would not leave until the university authorities removed them. This sounded like a provocative invitation. Dare to come get us.

Two other students, including an American, clammed up when I said I was a journalist. Another, also American, volunteered to look for someone from the ‘Press Team’, but came back empty-handed. She said she didn’t want to “get involved.” She spoke in the slightly dazed tone of a cult member.

I was then approached by an aggressive young man wearing a mask and a keffiyeh wrapped around his head, who instructed my interlocutor (another journalist) not to talk to me. Although this character’s face was largely invisible, his accent suggested he was English.

No one wanted to mention his or her name or background. My impression is that many of the protesters were American – according to the website there are 2,025 of them at university – while there were also a few Palestinians.

I realize that students have demonstrated throughout the ages, and I obviously support their right to do so. Yet there is something menacing about this protest.

What would I feel if I were a Jewish student? According to the Union of Jewish Students, there are more than 700 of them at the University of Oxford, the vast majority of whom must be British citizens. I think I would be scared.

This week it was reported that a Jewish student was denied entry to the pro-Palestinian camp in Oxford after refusing to sign a document condemning the ‘Zionist entity’.

In Cambridge, where a similar encampment has sprung up outside King’s College, a Jewish student was jostled as he unfurled an Israeli flag, which was ripped from his hands. What he did was courageous and possibly unwise.

Yes, if I were a Jewish student, at Oxford or Cambridge or any other British university where the protests are gaining momentum, I would be afraid – just as some of my Jewish friends are afraid to venture into central London at the weekend due to pro-Gaza demonstrations.

Being afraid of racist abuse or attacks in your own country: that is a terrible thing. If I am right in believing that many of the protesters in Oxford are American – and it is certain that they are copying an American phenomenon – we must ask what right they have in trying to destabilize and alarm the citizens of this country.

Gaza is a foreign war. One can think what one wants about it. (Like many, I have become increasingly alarmed by Israel’s actions.) Whatever your views, it is certain that nothing anyone does in this country – from the British government to the meanest American protester – has even the slightest effect on Israel will have.

These camps can have no practical use. They are expressions of a latent power that will undoubtedly intimidate Jewish students, who are likely to be British citizens. I find that unconscionable.

The university authorities are also unlikely to give in to students’ demands. The Oxford mob has a standard shopping list. End relations with Israeli universities. Liquidate any investments Oxford has in companies that do business with Israel or produce weapons. Stop banking with Barclays.

Some senior members of the University of Oxford may sympathize with the students – more than 300 of the 15,000 academics and staff have already signed an online letter in support of the protesters – but the university certainly cannot and will not give in to these unreasonable practices. to demand. This could lead to authorities removing the tents.

In the 1970s, when I was at Oxford, students of the Hard Left were certainly capable of causing a stir. Some of them once occupied the exam schools for a few weeks because they wanted their own student association. There is a photo of Chris Huhne (later a Lib Dem cabinet minister who got into trouble with the law) trying to break down the door.

As blatant as that was, they weren’t trying to terrorize fellow students. And they were homegrown criminals.

I realize that we live in a global village. But the spectacle of bigoted foreign students threatening British citizens for the Palestinian cause – not to mention desecrating a pleasant part of Oxford – marks a sinister departure.

This is an American import that we can do without. Take your bullying tactics back to where you came from, and let Oxford return to itself.