Attack on Israel’s deputy UK ambassador illustrates growing dangers on the British campus
The appalling events in the north of England on Wednesday night when Israeli Deputy Ambassador to the UK Talya Lador-Fresher was mobbed (photo here) by a frenzied group of extremists outside Manchester University are sadly indicative of the shape of things to come.
Ms. Lador-Fresher’s car was attacked by a group of anti-Israeli protestors who slapped and jumped at her car much in the manner that the police vans carrying child killers are rocked and spat on outside court houses in high profile crime cases.
The attack took place after her talk at the International Politics Society at Manchester University and Ms. Lador-Fresher was only saved from personal injury by a heavy police presence.
Unfortunately this sort of event is an all too frequent occurrence in Britain where violent extremists on the fringes feel that their bigotry is being licensed by the hysterical assault on the legitimacy of the Jewish state in mainstream media and politics.
According to a press statement from the Israeli embassy, Ms. Lador-Fresher said: “It was
a thoroughly unpleasant experience. If this is what passes for debate at British universities, it really is a worrying state of affairs.”
The problem is that this is indeed what too often passes for debate these days at British universities where quisling university rectors are too frightened to stand up to extremists.
The British campus watch organisation, Student Rights which is supported by the Henry Jackson Society think tank has covered both the attack on the deputy ambassador and the broader context in which this sort of incident now takes place in Britain. Their website is well worth perusing in detail.
The Director of Student Rights, Raheem Kassam, was quoted as saying: “Two days ago we warned of this kind of behaviour – however there was no action taken and as a result, Ms. Lador-Fresher was subject to abuse and attacks as she attempted to leave a speaking engagement at Manchester University. As you can see from the images captured – this was no ‘peaceful’ demonstration. Those who cry out for freedom of speech and peace should take a good hard look at what some of these divisive and violent activists on campus are doing.”
Indeed. But don’t hold your breath.
Tags: Israel
April 30th, 2010 at 11:35 am
The ZF has issued the following Press release:
The Zionist Federation unreservedly condemns the attack on the Deputy Ambassador of the State of Israel last night. It calls on the police and the University to take the strictest possible action against these would-be deniers of free speech. Those reponsible must be sent down from the unversity and prosecuted if responsible for criminal damage.
It is the abject failure of university Vice Chancellors to deal with extremism which fuels this kind of hateful action. Do we have to have serious injury or a death before Vice Chancellors see that the right to protest does not include the right to endanger life and limb?
The ZF again calls on Universities UK to stop extremist action at Universities; if it cannot, the next government has to step in quickly. The Universities were asked to act in 2006, in the Report of the All Party Committee on Antisemitism. But – as was shown last night and as is shown by the numbers of former Islamic Society activists who have been arrested and/or charged for terrorist offences – inaction opens the door to campus extremism.
April 30th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
We must view this event as emblematic or symbolic. Talya Lador-Fresher is a Jew; her car is the State of Israel; the behavior of those who assaulted the car is the manner in which the world comports itself in relation to the State of Israel. The analogy goes further. The police represent the world bodies who ignore the intentions of the attackers and will do a minimalist’s job in protecting the Jew in the car. Should the car’s windows have been broken, the police would have drag Ms. Flesher to safety in a distant location – perhaps; or left her to the crowd to be butchered. So it will be with the State of Israel.
April 30th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Raheem Kassam sounds alright.
Robin Shepherd says: He is more than that. He is a total hero. Support this man…
April 30th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
If the Manchester University authorities had any guts, they would crack down on these vicious protestors. Having allowed Islamic hate speech to go unchecked on campus for so long however, it is doubtful whether the present administration will ever find the courage or will to defend the rights of their Jewish students.
There is a simple solution. Universities that tolerate extremism and anti-semitism should simply have their funding cut. With a period of austerity soon to come, it would be an ideal way to save money, and restore some respectability to British Universities.
April 30th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
The reaction of the MU spokespeople:
“The University is fundamentally committed to freedom of speech, exercised within the law. It follows that it should also allow peaceful and lawful protest to take place on its campus.”
In according to Manchester University standards this thuggery was peaceful and lawful. Interesting future waits for the UK…
April 30th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Doesn’t this behaviour constitute Violent Disorder under the Public Order Act 1986 section 2 ? Surely the best way to protect people from thuggish attacks is to apply the law of the land. What have the police done ?
April 30th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Something even more worrying than the incident itself and the University’s appeasement of it — the only other term that could describe the University’s attitude is “Stockholm Syndrome” — is that if you go to google, and search for “lador-fresher manchester attack” you’ll get 3,500 hits, but if you google “NEWS” for the same thing, you’ll get a grand total of 2 hits, and one of these — TrueSlant — really is more of a blog. In other words, there’s only one real newspaper according to google that is covering this story, and that is Ynet (yediot aharonot). I find it incomprehensible and reprhensible that the British media in particular does not find this story newsworthy and can only explain it, again, in terms of the “appeasement stockholm-syndrome” syndrome that seems to be gaining strength in Britain.
April 30th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
1. It’s clearer than the sun (a Hungarian proverb) that this is quietly instigated by the MSM, mainly the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Channel4, but of course others too like Sky News, ITV and the other obnoxious “trash”, sorry. 2. Britain’s preeminence in the world race-track of Universities is becoming more and more a sad and distant myth. The British Unievrsities are not what they once were, but I see that this particular “University” where the incident happened is at best a 120th-rate one. 3. You can make a dissertation what kind of people you can see in the picture. But this latest point would be equally somewhat bigoted regarding the fact that there are others too of MidEast, Asian extraction who are on a totally different (correct) opinion.
April 30th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
What (unparallelled) intellectual capability would you expect from that little English brown-haired girl with tzopf on the picture just about to make her way to the bonnet of the Police car?
April 30th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
.and the British police…
…managed to handle the whole incident without gunning down one protester unlike the IDF who routinely shoot unarmed protesters.
May 1st, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Am I mistaken, or did the Guardian somehow overlook this incident – while dedicating an entire page at least once to the matter of Goldstone being barred from attending his grandson’s bar-mitzvah?
May 1st, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Peter Says: “.and the British police… …managed to handle the whole incident without gunning down one protester unlike the IDF who routinely shoot unarmed protesters.”
What a dumb comment. All that’s being asked here is that the university authorities and the police should have foreseen the danger and prevented the assault on the guest speaker’s vehicle. Or maybe Peter supports this thuggish and threatening behaviour ?
May 1st, 2010 at 6:26 pm
“Peter” – ha ha! It’s good, very good! Are you one of the thugs in the picture personally Peter? Or are you the little girl with the tzopf and kaffiyeh around neck expressing her courageous “manliness” at service of the Palestinians?
May 1st, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Peter, you know perfectly well that outright lies do not take you – and your kind – anywhere.
May 1st, 2010 at 7:01 pm
peter, you mean like the man killed at the G20 protest?
So smug…
May 1st, 2010 at 8:37 pm
We are glad that our propaganda has had an effect on Peter
May 1st, 2010 at 8:39 pm
England is as finished for the Jews as Iran is. Oh sure there’s still a revenant community in Iran, 25,000 or so cowed souls. Same thing for the UK. In a generation there will be a revenant community of terrified Jews still living there. And the government will point to them claiming religious freedom. That fact that occasionally a few are rounded up and lynched is Israel’s fault. England is dead and the only thing we can do is plan to evacuate as many Jews as we can when the time comes.
You are perhaps 5 years from having a new law that declares ‘Zionism’ is a crime requiring the harshest implementation of the law available. Assuming Sharia doesn’t take over and resurrect the death penalty.
May 2nd, 2010 at 6:09 am
I was intrigued to read that someone by the name of Raheem Kassam was standing up for the Israeli diplomat and criticizing the demonstrators. Who is this person?
May 2nd, 2010 at 11:12 pm
One more thing Peter – as I was thinking about what you said it just dawned on me why on earth you did not compare the British Police to the Israeli one? Apple to apple instead of apple to trolleybus. And why the IDF which is an army? Surely the IDF should be compared to the Royal Army as the corresponding force and not the Police, no??? Weasel thinking Paul but certainly revealing!
May 9th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Famous Tony Judt said:
“The depressing truth is that Israel is bad for the Jews”
Today, non-Israeli Jews feel themselves once again exposed to criticism and vulnerable to attack for things they didn’t do. But this time it is a Jewish state, not a Christian one, which is holding them hostage for its own actions. Diaspora Jews cannot influence Israeli policies, but they are implicitly identified with them, not least by Israel’s own insistent claims upon their allegiance. The behavior of a self-described Jewish state affects the way everyone else looks at Jews. The increased incidence of attacks on Jews in Europe and elsewhere is primarily attributable to misdirected efforts, often by young Muslims, to get back at Israel. The depressing truth is that Israel’s current behavior is not just bad for America, though it surely is. It is not even just bad for Israel itself, as many Israelis silently acknowledge. The depressing truth is that Israel today is bad for the Jews.
‘Israel: The Alternative’ in de New York Review of Books (2003)Tony Judt