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London’s Royal College of Art (RCA) has been accused of allowing its Jewish and Israeli students to suffer intimidation following an incident in which an Israeli flag was torn down while a Palestinian flag was left on display, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.
RCA students said that an Israeli flag was removed from a studio and thrown to the floor despite the fact that Palestinian flags and symbols were displayed nearby.
Jewish and Israeli students stated that when they tried to express their feelings, they were “shouted down, told to shut up, and threatened.”
“The RCA must stop discrimination against and harassment of its Jewish and Israeli students,” Jonathan Turner, the chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), told The Telegraph. “Hostility of other students is no excuse, especially when that hostility has been promoted by extremely biased anti-Israel lectures, which have very little, if any, connection with the RCA’s objects.”
“Freedom of expression should be protected at universities – and it is unless it supports Israel, in which case it is increasingly suppressed,” Turner continued. “We have seen this development in disciplines ranging from international law to politics, history, and even to sciences and arts.”
“For visual arts students, images are particularly important. So at the Royal College of Art, emblems of Palestine are sacrosanct, while flags of Israel are torn down and Jewish students are told to shut up.”
UKLFI wrote a letter to the RCA president and vice-chancellor, Professor Christoph Linder, asking him to address the issue.
The letter referenced an incident where a staff member insisted that a student explain his ethnicity and how he qualified as an Israeli.
The staff member reportedly said it was questionable that the student’s mother was Jewish.
Another example the letter cites involves one of the RCA’s courses, Forensic Architecture, which examines the architectural history of Gaza.
UKFLI reported that many students complained about a number of lectures in which Israel was accused of committing genocide in Gaza.
“Lectures such as this promote an extremely hostile atmosphere for Jewish and Israeli students, contributing to events such as those described above,” UKLFI said.
The professor of the lecture, Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, told The Telegraph, “Despite all of the evidence we have, despite reports by major human rights organizations and a preliminary ruling by the ICJ that Israel is (plausibly) committing genocide – we cannot even have the conversation without being accused of antisemitism.”
Discrimination
UKLFI explained that under the Equality Act 2010, Jews, Israelis, and Zionists have protected characteristics of ethnicity, religion, and/or belief.
Banning Israeli flags or items relating to the ethnic identity of Jews but not doing the same for other ethnicities constitutes discrimination, it said.
RCA chose not to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism in 2016.
In July 2024, RCA faced criticism after it held a summer exhibition with two artworks, one which featured a swastika looming over screaming Gazan women and another that showed a faceless Jewish pilot against a backdrop of bodybags.
One artwork remained, and the other was removed.
