UK: Pro-Israel speakers on British campuses are lucky to be afforded an opportunity to speak

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach:

For eleven years I served as rabbi to the students of Oxford University where I hosted five Israeli Prime Ministers and countless pro-Israel speakers. To be sure, they were protested against and the sympathies of the students — always championing the perceived underdog — were primarily with the Palestinians.

Nevertheless, our speakers were accorded the basic decency of being heard. And when their arguments were perceived to be convincing, they were even given standing ovations. No longer.

Pro-Israel speakers on British campuses are lucky to make it out whole, that is, if they are ever afforded an opportunity to speak in the first place. There is an outpouring of open anti-Israel hostility that belies the simple truth of the Middle East, which is that Israel remains its only open and fully functioning democracy, albeit with a seemingly intractable problem of having a large and hostile Palestinian population who of course deserve full rights but who seem intent on using those freedoms to ensure that Israel no longer exists.

More: The Times of Israel