Oxford Action for Palestine continue to make headlines despite a ceasefire in Gaza.
Latest Crackdown: Radcliffe Camera
Protestors launched a sit-in across the Universities’ main library, the Radcliffe Camera, on Friday. OA4P gave library staff and fellow Oxonians one minute to vacate the Camera before shutting down the library amidst a full on ‘occupation’.
In response, Thames Valley police, fire fighters, and university security approached the dome with bolt cutters and apprehended the protestors amidst their siege of the Camera.
When the Daily Euro Times reached out to OA4P for comment, OA4P refused to comment but insiders, close to the group, told DET that their actions will not stop until all their six policy demands are met.
The latest occupation, launched for ‘justice’, comes amidst Israel’s war ‘on Gaza’ with representatives justifying the occupation of public property as a “reaction to Israel’s genocide in Gaza”.
Cries of “Israel is a terrorist state” continue to rock the university campus since Israel’s war on the enclave. Over 46, 000 Palestinians have lost their lives according to the Gaza Health Ministry in response to Hamas’ attack on Israel Proper that killed over 1, 200 Israelis on the 7th of October.
Two Realities: Qatar & Jordan Speak
Scenes of Palestinians returning home to flattened neighbourhoods confirmed the destruction of Gaza. Two quotes sum up the current situation in Gaza:
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, H.E. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, at the World Economic Forum: “We believe all of Gaza is destroyed. It is not just 80%.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safafi: “Hamas is an idea. You cannot kill an idea.”
Both statements are spot on. Hamas, of course, originated from the Muslim Brotherhood, but efforts to paint every Islamist group with the same brush is fictional as it is misleading.
The appeal to joining Hamas is never going to change as long as viable solutions remain off the table. Politics on ‘both sides’ are fragmented and efforts to address anxieties require real global leadership with actual solutions by the international community.
Hamas Is Still Kicking: The Day After
Scenes of Hamas militants amidst the exchange of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners at hostage exchange sites confirmed the truth.
Hamas cannot be destroyed and any “day after” ought to produce a viable alternative to ‘violent resistance’.
Other types of resistance, under Ramallah’s co-option, that are perceived to be defunct, corrupt, and illegitimate by most of the international community require reform.
Oxford’s Clampdown Since 2023
Responding to the latest crisis, Oxford University shut down OA4P’s encampment outside Pitt Rivers’ Museum last year.
According to OA4P, Oxford also seized contact with OA4P after outlining ‘provisional steps’ to help those fleeing conflict more broadly.
Such measures follow civil society pressure, at the university and global level, following Israel’s war on Gaza.
Onlookers label Oxford’s efforts to help Palestinian students and the wider diaspora as mere “lip service”.
OA4P outlines six policy demands in return for an end to their protest:
1. Disclose – All University-wide assets including (in-)direct investments, land holdings, donations, and grants.
2. Divest – (In-)direct holdings in all arms companies.
3. Overhaul – Investment policy.
4. Boycott – Institutional relationships with Israeli universities.
5. Drop – Barclays Bank.
6. Rebuild & Reinvest – In Palestinian-led rebuilding.
Whilst Israel-Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, which remains in-tact for now, Oxford’s intransigence to come clean about its funding only confirms the inevitable. Oxford University are never going to sacrifice their institutional ties with leading Israeli institutions, such as the Hebrew University, and neither are they going to disclose their funding sources.
Israeli defence companies are reported to hold capital investments at Trinity College at Oxford’s rival, the University of Cambridge, last year. Student pressure reportedly forced Trinity to divest, however, officials at Trintiy denied any divestment.
Trinity holds significant investments in Elbit Systems which produces 85% of the drones and land-based equipment used by the Israeli army.
A Lack of Leadership: Donations
It is understandable that the university leadership aims to take a neutral stance on what has become a polarising topic for all. However, the failure to disclose foreign investments only drive OA4P’s courage to disrupt, destroy, and damage university property until its demands are at least addressed.
Unfortunately, the funding of university higher education system is rife with donations by duplicitous (non-)state actors (in-)directly. Leading institutions, namely Oxford, naturally accept money from families with scandalous backgrounds: the Blavatnik Family, Rhodes Trust, and the Sackler Foundation.
A Generational Divide
Gen Z are far more in touch with causes of human injustice than older generations, who use social media, namely TikTok and Insta Reels, as a source of ‘news’ than lobbied media outlets: Fox News, i.e., the GOP mouthpiece or the BBC known for its ‘liberal Zionist spin’.
Part of this mobilises the youth to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in its entirety, even if some of the youth pursue slogans that some label as “anti-Semitic” which others see as a cry for equal rights under a “apartheid system”… from the river to the sea.
Of course, some of OA4P are inspired by insincere motivations, unable to see the nuance in a conflict that has injustices for both Israelis and Palestinians. And, yes, some of OA4P are naïve in their thinking but all protest groups have a core message and fringe groups that exploit a central message for their own gain; that is politics.
At the heart of OA4P’s message, however, is a call for justice in two forms: transparency and accountability.
A Pathway for Justice & Accountability
If Oxford can learn anything from this reputation crisis, the university needs to ‘own it’.
Oxford’s legacy precedes it. Dirty money functions as the status quo as it does with any global education system. The difference with Oxford and Cambridge, compared to U.S. Ivy Leagues, is not just academic pedigree but the protection of academic freedoms on research in the UK education system than in the U.S.
The American higher education system faces the full raft of the Israel Lobby, that exists in the UK, but not in the same magnitude. The Lobby has policed academia, increasingly, since the Second Intifada with the rise of ‘Israel Studies’ that state to hold “pedagogical value” but really exist to whitewash Israel’s position in global civil society amidst human rights abuses in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Of course, lobbying exists in its abundance across UK higher education system, but academia is far more independent in the UK than its U.S. counterparts.
At the end of the day, Oxford can achieve some PR wins without politicising anything. Oxford can do more to support the rebuilding of Gaza, following its policy of supporting higher education in conflict zones, whilst holding itself more accountable to foreign donations.
Senior leadership ought to do something; otherwise such incidents will escalate at a time when Gaza is flattened and Oxford seeks to change it’s reputation.
