In the three-and-a-half months since I last visited the UCL library, much has happened in transatlantic campus life. Specifically, the introduction of a new paradigm of anti-Israel student shenanigans, following the widely-publicised and shocking scenes at Columbia, UCLA and other American universities in April, when protesters set up encampments on university property, took over buildings, heckled police, and refused to budge – all while waving antisemitic placards, yelling antisemitic slogans from loudhailers and defacing private property with an unholy melange of black, white, green and red. Anti-Israel activism by students claiming to be invested in the Palestinian cause is hardly new.
But the levels of organisation of this lot, their neat tents, their documents, their fans in mainstream politics, their smug relish at taunting police and, most sinister of all, their explicit endorsement of Hamas and Hezbollah, marked a new departure. Institutional spinelessness before screaming students is not new either. But the complicity, or fear – or both – of universities in these occupations has been nothing short of spectacular.
All of which explains the scene that met me at the weekend. Unlike before, the university gates were closed, with all visitors having to pass through the office. Once in, all you can see in any direction are the feverish vandalisms of antisemitic anti-Zionism.
There is a sea of tents, some draped in keffiyehs, and a forest of signs and banners done up.
