An undergraduate student at a French campus of the University of London is speaking out after her tutor gave her course material repeating the “blood libel” that American police officers are using violent “Zionist law enforcement tactics” against minority communities.
Twenty-year old student Chloe Santaub, who attends the London Institute in Paris (ULIP), which is part of the University of London, told the Jewish Chronicle that material from her politics course included a statement that “Zionist law enforcement tactics like tear gas and rubber bullets” were being used to target activists in San Diego, and had been “tested on Palestinians by Israel and deployed on black and brown bodies by the United States.”
The material “promoted the anti-Semitic blood libel by directly implicating Israelis and Jews in American police violence,” Santaub said.
She added that accusations that Israelis are “settler-colonists” and that Israel is an “apartheid state” and “racist” are commonly brought up in class.
An article assigned last year contained a reference to Israel as the “gendered, racialized, capitalist colonial project of the Israeli state, ably supported by US economic and military aid.”
“In the case of Israel, an opposing perspective, a refutation, is never provided. These materials are given to students as fact. They’re not debated in class,”Santaub said.
Extreme anti-Israel material being taught to students would be noteworthy because the University of London’s board adopted the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism in 2020.
Santaub said that she has spoken to staff at her school several times about the inappropriate material but has always been shut down."
She added that the problem has become significantly worse during the last year, as she has been “dismissed, discouraged, mocked and isolated.”
Santaub has received help from two lawyers working for the UK Lawyers for Israel group.
During the recent two-day conference on combating anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Association that took place in Poland the student shared her story. She noted that many of those in the audience were very surprised by her experience of campus anti-Semitism and similar talks given by other European students.
“My case is really not unusual or even the worst one. I don’t want anyone to experience even what I have,” she said.