Anti-Israel demonstration (illustrative)
Anti-Israel demonstration (illustrative)Israel news photo: Flash 90

A senior student leader in Britain faced criticism and calls to resign on Sunday after claiming that historic Jewish suffering is a modern fabrication aimed at allowing Jews to persecute Arabs.

Clare Solomon, president of the University of London Student Union, who was raised Mormon, wrote on her Facebook page, “The view that Jews have been persecuted all throughout history is one that has been fabricated in the last 100 or so years to justify the persecution of the Palestinians. To paint the picture that all Jews have always had to flee persecution is just plainly inaccurate.”

Her comments were published by the British paper Daily Mail.

Members of the Union of Jewish Students said Solomon should resign. “We have lost confidence in her ability to represent Jewish students,” UJS officer Carly McKenzie told the Daily Mail. “To claim that Jewish suffering is a deliberate fabrication goes beyond ignorance into real malice.”

“Her remarks had nothing to do with principled opposition to Israel, and everything to do with her disdain towards the Jewish people,” McKenzie added.

Britain's Jewish Chronicle reported that a second leading figure in recent student demonstrations had made extreme comments critical of Israel, Britain and America. Jody McIntyre, who has accused police of violence during the demonstrations, accused Israel of “apartheid” and of putting Arabs in “ghettos,” and warned about “the cancer of British and American imperialism and racism spreading across the planet.”