ByNaomi Firsht, Naomi Firsht
A study has revealed that increasing restrictions on free speech on campus are having a profound impact on pro-Israel students.
There are currently 13 student unions at British universities that have adopted BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanction) policies against Israel, according to research by online magazine Spiked.
Across the country's 115 universities, Israel was the only individual country targeted by boycotters.
Spiked deputy editor Tom Slater, who compiled the rankings, said Israel supporters had been hit hard by the trend towards censorship and bans.
"If you're pro-Israel on campus today you haven't got a hope in hell of holding a debate or inviting a pro-Israel speaker without facing pickets and censorship," he said.
"More and more students' unions are signing up to BDS. Even at universities that haven't, campus campaigners find novel ways of making sure pro-Israel events don't go ahead.
"To my mind the war on pro-Israel students is the most explicit and widespread form of political censorship that we see on campus today.
"Pro-Israel students have told me they don't even feel welcome at their own universities. Students who believe in freedom of speech - no matter what side they come down on in the Israel-Palestine debate - need to start piping up about this. It's a scandal."
However, Union of Jewish Students campaigns director Russell Langer said the vast majority of pro-Israel events on campus were not targeted by protesters.
He said: "In the most extreme of cases there have been some calls to stop such events from happening by a vocal minority. It is not always easy to be pro-Israel on campus but to say it is impossible is an oversimplification,"
Yiftah Curiel, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London, said he had run numerous successful events on campuses last term.
However he called the free speech data "worrying" and said "in the Israeli context it usually takes the form of marginal groups espousing an agenda of hatred, which employ threats and intimidation against fellow students in order to prevent dialogue".
Spiked's "Free Speech University Rankings 2016" showed that restrictions on free speech occured at 90 per cent of universities, up from 80 per cent in last year's rankings. Students' unions were the worst offenders, with 62 per cent ranked red under the survey's traffic light system, compared to just 15 per cent of university administrations.
Censorship ranged from "no platform" policies banning speakers to the Edinburgh student union's "costumes policy" that prevents students dressing up as, among other things, "Mexicans" or "a mental patient".