{"id":540483,"date":"2026-07-14T06:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T06:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/540483\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T06:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T06:18:13","slug":"universities-not-doing-enough-to-deal-with-protests-and-highly-personal-attacks-antisemitism-royal-commission-hears-royal-commission-on-antisemitism-and-social-cohesion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/540483\/","title":{"rendered":"Universities not doing enough to deal with protests and \u2018highly personal\u2019 attacks, antisemitism royal commission hears | Royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Jewish professor has told the royal commission into antisemitism the University of Melbourne needs to show it doesn\u2019t \u201ctolerate misbehaviour\u201d after the expulsion of two pro-Palestine student activists who occupied his office was overturned.<\/p>\n

Steven Prawer, a professor of physics, said on Tuesday that he had not known at the time if it was a \u201cterrorist attack\u201d.<\/p>\n

On 9 October 2024, 20 pro-Palestine students covered in keffiyehs, hoods and masks occupied Prawer\u2019s office for about 90 minutes, protesting the university\u2019s partnerships with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prawer, a self-described Zionist who wears a kippah, is the academic lead for the universities\u2019 joint PhD program. Two protesters were recommended for expulsion<\/a> and two for suspension after the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was only one year after the atrocities in Israel and so I was very perturbed,\u201d Prawer said. \u201cI had no idea at that stage if it was a protest, if it was a terrorist attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prawer described the protesters\u2019 allegations that the university was complicit in genocide due to its partnerships with Israel as \u201cridiculous\u201d and said the protest was a \u201chighly personal attack\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there are 50 students on the lawn protesting and surrounded by security staff, they don\u2019t pose an imminent threat to an individual,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen there are 20 students in an office with an individual, the equation is completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then vice-chancellor issued a statement to the university community saying he was \u201cshocked and appalled\u201d. After the students were disciplined in June, about 150 university employees and affiliates signed a petition<\/a> maintaining sit-ins were a legitimate form of protest. The decision was overturned by the academic board after an appeal.<\/p>\n

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Prawer said he still didn\u2019t know the identity of the protesters, despite hiring a private investigator as he feared \u201cHamas connections\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for my protection \u2026 I should know who these people are,\u201d he said. \u201cThe community needs to hear loudly and clearly that the university tolerates dissent but it doesn\u2019t tolerate misbehaviour \u2026 Where\u2019s the deterrence?\u201d<\/p>\n

After a university sit-in and the occupation of Prawer\u2019s office, indoor protests at the University of Melbourne have been banned<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fourth block of royal commission hearings, taking place in Melbourne this week, is examining the lived experiences of Jewish students and academics, including the response of universities to combat hate.<\/p>\n

A University of Melbourne spokesperson described Prawer\u2019s testimony as \u201cpowerful\u201d and acknowledged the \u201csignificant impact\u201d the incident had had on himself and his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university is providing ongoing support to Professor Prawer and we uphold his right to pursue his academic endeavours and research partnerships without being harassed or intimidated,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

The interim vice-chancellor, Prof Glyn Davis, will appear before the commission on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s witnesses also spoke of Jewish students fearing to attend university campuses in the aftermath of the 7 October Hamas terror attack.<\/p>\n

The president of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), Jeremy Suss, told the commissioner he was often \u201ctrying to console\u201d undergraduates who had arrived on campuses with a \u201cstrong sense of apprehension\u201d because of antisemitic incidents reported in the media and via word of mouth.<\/p>\n

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Suss attends Monash University and said he had a \u201cproductive relationship\u201d with the chancellery but wasn\u2019t immune to hostility on campus. He pointed to a Jewish event for the Sukkot holiday on the anniversary of 7 October.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, he said, four individuals approached him and began \u201cquite aggressively\u201d interrogating him, including talking about \u201ckilling or exiling all of Israel\u2019s population\u201d and saying \u201cwe see all of you at your lunches every week\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found it incredibly confronting \u2026 I ensured members at our AUJS events were no longer packing up on their own,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a new constant task to be walking students through the difficult processes of following up from their awful experiences on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cUniversities have not dealt with incidents in a productive or meaningful way. We have many students that have waited months to hear back [about] incidents. Sometimes they are outwardly dismissed \u2026 Sometimes they never hear back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Author, activist and academic Prof Dennis Altman criticised universities for what he described as moving to \u201cshut down discussion\u201d on Israel-Palestine, adding the best path forward was to build bridges between Jewish and Palestinian communities.<\/p>\n

He told the commissioner he was more afraid of \u201cneo-Nazis\u201d than pro-Palestine protesters. He said the biggest problem universities had was \u201cthey have actually not found ways of encouraging \u2026 respectful debate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tendency has been the opposite. It\u2019s been to shut down discussion. And that I think in turn promotes all sorts of conspiratorial stories,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we most need in this country at the moment on this issue is a mutual recognition that people are hurting. Social cohesion demands that all groups come out of their narrow focus and reach across.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Jewish professor has told the royal commission into antisemitism the University of Melbourne needs to show it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-540483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}