Universities must take action to ensure Jewish not harassed during Gaza protests, No 10 says

Prime minister summons vice-chancellors to meeting this week to discuss antisemitism on campuses

Universities must take “robust action” to ensure Jewish students are not harassed, Downing Street has urged amid ongoing protests on campuses against the war in Gaza.

The prime minister has summoned university leaders to a meeting this week to discuss antisemitism on campuses and ensure Jewish students are safe.

It comes as students at Cambridge and Oxford universities are among the latest protesters to set up encampments to demonstrate against the war in Gaza on campuses.

Rishi Sunak opened Tuesday’s cabinet meeting by saying there had been an ‘unacceptable rise in antisemitism on our university campuses’ (Getty)

Rishi Sunak opened Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting by saying there had been an “unacceptable rise in antisemitism on our university campuses” and vice-chancellors would be meeting to discuss “the need for our universities to be safe for our Jewish students”, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said.

He said: “Our university campuses should be places of rigorous debate, but they should also be tolerant places where people of all communities, particularly Jewish students at this time, are treated with respect.”

Protesters have set up tents outside universities across the UK, including Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle, after unrest at similar sites in the US.

Asked what the prime minister’s message was to students involved in the protests, the spokesperson said: “The right to free speech does not include the right to harass people or incite violence.

Students march to deliver their demands to Cambridge University as they protest against the war in Gaza (Joe Giddens/PA)

“We expect university leaders to take robust action in dealing with that kind of behaviour and that will be the subject of the conversation in No 10 later this week to ensure a zero-tolerance approach to this sort of behaviour is adopted on all campuses.”

Pressed on whether police should be called in to clear protest camps, the spokesperson said: “We want to see university leaders taking a robust approach to unacceptable behaviour.”

More than 100 people attended a demonstration outside King’s College, Cambridge, on Tuesday – where a protester with a megaphone by the encampment led a chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

Protesters with Palestine flags and placards marched from the encampment to deliver their demands to the University of Cambridge.

A person works on a laptop computer as they sit by tents during a protest in support of Palestinian people, at King’s College at Cambridge (AFP via Getty)

A Cambridge student, who did not wish to be named, described herself as “part of a global collective which is a struggle for Palestinian liberation”.

The student said the protesters were demanding that the university “disclose all of its research collaborations and financial ties with companies and institutions complicit in Israel’s genocide and then to divest from these”.

“We will be staying here until our demands are met,” she said.

Police cleared a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at the University of Chicago on Tuesday amid tensions on US campuses over the war in Gaza.

Demonstrators clash at an encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, earlier in May (AP)

A University and College Union (UCU) spokesperson said: “It has been shocking to witness militarised police forces invited onto campuses in the United States to violently shut down peaceful dissent.

“As peaceful encampments and occupations spread across Britain, we call on vice-chancellors to take a different approach.

“We are clear that antisemitism and Islamophobia have no place on our campuses or in our society, but freedom of speech and freedom of assembly within the law are fundamental human rights and civil liberties which must be upheld.”

A University of Cambridge spokesperson said: “The university is fully committed to academic freedom and freedom of speech within the law and we acknowledge the right to protest.

“We ask everyone in our community to treat each other with understanding and empathy. Our priority is the safety of all staff and students.

“We will not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia and any other form of racial or religious hatred, or other unlawful activity.”