Oxford University students and activists from Your Party took part in a demonstration during which protesters chanted “long live the intifada” hours after the deadly terrorist attack on Bondi beach in Australia.
The rally, which took place in Oxford city centre on Sunday afternoon, was held in support of eight hunger strikers affiliated with Palestine Action, which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
The strikers are awaiting trial over their alleged involvement in break-ins at a Bristol site belonging to Elbit Systems, the Israeli defence company, and a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire.
Intifada is the Arabic word for “rebellion” and refers to Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Some consider the phrase “long live the intifada” and other variations to be a call to violence against Jews.
There were similar chants of “intifada revolution” at a protest outside Snaresbrook crown court on Monday, where the hunger strikers will stand trial.
Other protests took place over the weekend in Birmingham and Manchester. An “emergency demonstration” announced on Sunday was also due to be held in Stockport, Greater Manchester, on Monday night.
A protest in support of the hunger strikers is planned for Tuesday outside Downing Street.
• Bondi beach falls silent after trauma that will take years to heal
The protest in Oxford, which was organised before the Bondi attack, was promoted and attended by local activists from Your Party, the socialist party founded this year by the former Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, and Oxford Action for Palestine, a university society open to both students and academics.
Jeremy Corbyn
ADAM VAUGHAN/EPA
A Your Party spokesman said: “The antisemitic attack in Sydney was horrifying and our thoughts are with Jewish communities fearing for their safety. We strongly reject any attempt to pit opposition to antisemitism against the struggle for Palestinian freedom.”
The university was criticised by the prime minister in October over its handling of a student who led chants for Gaza to “put the Zios in the ground”. Sir Keir Starmer said Oxford had been slow to react after Samuel Williams, a student at Balliol College, chanted the words at a protest in London.
On Monday Starmer was urged to sever ties with Labour’s largest donor over a series of “morally repugnant” comments he made following the terrorism attack.
• Yoni Bashan: Bondi attack is what happens when you normalise anti-Jewish hate
Dale Vince, the green energy magnate, linked rising antisemitism to Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza after Sunday’s atrocity. Vince, who has given more than £5.5 million to the party, wrote on X: “Commenting on the shootings in Australia today Netanyahu said antisemitism spreads when leaders stay silent. Nothing to do with Israel committing genocide in Palestine then. Netanyahu wants antisemitism to be a thing, it validates him — he acts to make it so.”
Dale Vince, the Ecotricity boss, has given more than £5 million to Labour
ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE TIMES
The remarks drew immediate condemnation. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said it was “a morally repugnant statement” and asked: “Will Keir Starmer condemn his big financial backer? Staying silent implies he sees nothing wrong.”
Lord Austin of Dudley, a former Labour MP, described Vince’s comments as showing “his true colours”, while Lord Walney, a crossbench peer and former government adviser on political extremism, said that it was “time for Starmer to cut ties with Mr Vince”.
Lord Walney
EUAN CHERRY FOR THE TIMES
Vince posted a follow-up tweet, saying his words were “not intended to excuse or legitimise terrorism, or any form of racism”. He said: “If antisemitism is rising in the world today then surely on any rational analysis, the biggest single cause of that will be the genocide in Palestine. I condemn all acts of violence and all forms of racism.”
The Labour Party said: “We are absolutely clear that the antisemitic terrorist attack against Jewish families at a Chanukkah event at Bondi beach is sickening. There can never and should never be any excuses made for barbaric acts of terrorism.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism group said: “The Islamist terrorist attacks in Manchester and Bondi beach have not arisen in a vacuum. They are born of a climate of antisemitism, glorification of terrorism and genocidal rhetoric that we have seen on our streets and social media, on our campuses and in cultural institutions.”
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, the shadow attorney-general, who is related to the British-born rabbi killed in the Bondi beach attack, said people needed to be “more muscular” in fighting the root causes of antisemitic violence and “defending the values that make the UK the society we want it to be”.
• Daniel Finkelstein: For the first time in my life, I feel fear lighting Chanukkah candles
Wolfson and Eli Schlanger shared a great uncle. Speaking at a memorial event and Chanukkah celebration in Parliament Square, Wolfson said: “In the past few weeks we saw marchers in Manchester and Birmingham calling for intifada. Well, do you know what globalising the intifada looks like? We do now — it looks like bodies piled on the sands of Bondi beach.”
He added that people need “to stand with us and speak up for the values which we all hold so dear”.