Love of the Land: From enlightenment into darkness at Oxford and Cambridge

From enlightenment into darkness at Oxford and Cambridge

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
09 February '10

From the blog of the Community Security Trust – the self-defence organisation of the British Jewish community:

Last night Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, spoke at the Oxford Union. A meeting that was frequently disrupted by members of the audience reached its low point when one person shouted “Kill the Jews” in Arabic, before being thrown out of the meeting.

... There is a detailed account of the meeting on The edge of where? blog, which has this revealing vignette about the attitude of at least one person in the audience:

Outside the debating chamber, all the while, protestors were shouting ‘free free Palestine from the river to the sea’. When Ayalon argued that this chant amounted to a call for Israel’s destruction, and asked where Israeli Jews would have to go for Palestine to be free ‘from the river to the sea’, the woman sitting next to me said ‘back to where they came from!’ I couldn’t resist and had to ask her where exactly it was that she expected Jews to go ‘back to’, to which she replied, ‘well you’re in England, you appear to be doing fine’. I didn’t think it worthwhile to point out that actually my grandparents ‘came from’ Poland and Czechoslovakia, and that the reason I am in England today is that in the 1930s they were not ‘doing fine’ in the countries they ‘came from’.

This follows the disinviting by Cambridge Israel Society of the Israeli historian Benny Morris, one-time darling of the left for his revisionist history of David Ben Gurion but now apparently a non-person because he tells the truth about the Arab threat to Israel.

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Related: 2 Press Releases: Oxford Union to take disciplinary action against students who disrupted Deputy FM Ayalon. Ayalon looking into possibility of pressing charges against student who shouted "Slaughter the Jews" at Oxford Union event

Love of the Land: From enlightenment into darkness at Oxford and Cambridge

Love of the Land: Useful idiots

Useful idiots

David Harris
In the Trenches/JPost
19 January '10

In 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler became the German chancellor, the Oxford Union famously adopted a resolution which said "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country." The measure was passed by a vote of 275 to 153.

Winston Churchill reacted by saying that "one could almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of Germany, Italy, and France when they read the message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England."

Shortly afterward, his son, Randolph, tried to have the resolution stricken from the books, but the motion was resoundingly defeated by the Oxford Union.

In other words, otherwise bright students at a distinguished British university are capable of foolish things. At least in this case, it must be said, "Young England" rose to the occasion six years later, when the Second World War began, and revealed its true colors of patriotism, courage and grit.

Recently, another British student union was presented with a controversial proposal. The London School of Economics (LSE) debated whether to seek the twinning of this world-renowned institution with the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG).

After a spirited discussion, the motion was carried by a vote of 161 to 133. The university administration distanced itself from the decision.

As an alumnus of LSE, I am ashamed of the student action. Sure, LSE has a reputation for feisty politics, but this is taking it a bit far.

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Love of the Land: Useful idiots