Yesterday, a packed room of UCL staff and students were privileged to hear Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and renowned international lawyer, deliver a powerful talk on the topic of genocide against Palestinians and the path to international accountability. Ms Albanese educated and inspired us to continue building our solidarity with the Palestinian people, including by holding UCL accountable for its complicity with Israel’s genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid system against Palestinians.
The urgency of this event was underlined as we awoke yesterday morning to the horrifying news that Israel has restarted its genocidal bombing campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza. After countless violations of the negotiated ceasefire, Israel’s latest attack on the besieged population of Gaza killed over 400 Palestinians in one night.
Outside the event, hundreds of supporters gathered to protect the speaker and attendees from a small demonstration of Zionist and far-right protesters who sought to have the event cancelled. The success of the event was a significant victory for the movement for Palestinian liberation and a defeat for the forces of silencing and repression.
Zionist groups, including the fascist organisation Betar, publicly issued threats of violence against the speaker and attendees of the event. ‘Campaign against Antisemitism’, long discredited as pro-Israel lobbyists, wrote to the university administration pressuring them to cancel this event.
We received no support from the university in the face of the violent genocide supporters who threatened to mobilise both outside and inside the event. Instead, UCL students who were organising to protect our community were threatened with disciplinary action by UCL’s provost Michael Spence.
Mere hours before the event was due to begin, the event organisers were informed by the administration that Ms Albanese’s talk would be postponed. No justification was provided. The Students’ Union at UCL had already withdrawn its support for the event on a technocratic pretext.
It would have marked a truly shameful and dangerous development if a British university had taken steps to prevent a representative of the United Nations from addressing staff and students under pressure from supporters of Israel’s genocide. Thankfully, we did not allow that to happen.
We refused to accept this coordinated assault on academic freedom and attempt to silence solidarity with Palestine. The organisers insisted, with support from other senior UCL academic staff, that the event would go ahead. UCL eventually conceded that Ms Albanese could not be stopped from speaking on campus, and we were able to proceed with the event.
kiThe Palestinian people need no one’s permission to advocate for their liberation from colonialism, apartheid and genocide. As Palestinians and those in solidarity with Palestine, we will never accept any attempts to curtail our right to free assembly and expression through either bureaucratic manoeuvres or violence.
Israel is indiscriminately bombing Gaza with technology and weapons made by companies which fund research at UCL and whose representatives sit on UCL’s highest decision making bodies.
We renew our call for UCL to end its repression of Palestine advocacy and to cut all ties with Israel’s genocidal regime. This call has been expressed repeatedly by the overwhelming majority of UCL students and staff, including all four campus trade unions, over the last 18 months of Israel’s genocide.
We won’t be silenced. We will stand with the Palestinian people until the genocide is ended and Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.
UCL Action for Palestine, BDS @ UCL, and UCL Jews for Palestinian Justice