An Amnesty UK staffer has called for Israel’s diplomats to be “run off campus” – while another took part in a rally at Cambridge where pro-Palestinian protestors sang the notorious “from the river to the sea” chant, the JC can reveal.
Ilyas Nagdee, the NGO’s Racial Justice Lead, tweeted after Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely had been surrounded by a mob of protestors at the London School of Economics (LSE) last November.
He wrote: “Just as with LSE, it’s absolutely correct that spokespeople for an apartheid regime are run off campus.
“Solidarity with the students in the face on any backlash they receive. They take their place on the right side of history [sic].”
Last week, the Jewish News revealed Mr Nagdee had made antisemitic comments 12 years ago, aged 16. He has since apologised.
Amnesty Head of Safeguarding Mairead Healy attended a protest at Cambridge University this month (below) as Ambassador Hotovely spoke to the Union.
Protestors brandished flares and chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a slogan Education Secretary Nadim Zahawi has vowed to ban from campuses.
Ms Healy, a Labour councillor, spoke at the rally. According to Socialist Worker, she said: “Whether they live in Gaza, east Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group. Amnesty has found Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amounts to apartheid.”
Andrew Percy, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, told the JC: “Cambridge University needs to ito determine if any of their students were involved and, if so, what action they plan to take against students using a slogan so beloved of terrorists.” Mr Nagdee was approached for comment.
Ilyas Nagdee said: “As one of Israel’s most virulently anti-Palestinian politicians, it was entirely predictable that Tzipi Hotovely’s visit to Cambridge would be met by protests.
"Tzipi Hotovely is a leading proponent of Israel’s crushing system of apartheid who has given succour to extremist settler groups and called the Nakba ‘an Arab lie’. I support peaceful protests aimed at sending a strong anti-racist, anti-apartheid message to unapologetically divisive figures like Tzipi Hotovely.”
