Government accepts recommendations inspired by Campaign Against Antisemitism to tackle antisemitism in schools
Sir David Bell has published his much-anticipated independent review into antisemitism in schools and colleges. He made 27 recommendations, which you can read here.
Sir David’s key findings include:
- One in five young people have witnessed or experienced antisemitism.
- Almost three in five Jewish youngsters have done so, as have many teachers.
- This includes stereotypes, jokes and derogatory comments in social spaces, classrooms and online.
- Pupils and students are the most common perpetrators.
- Children don’t bother reporting incidents because they don’t believe they will be addressed.
- Teachers report high levels of workplace antisemitism and inadequate organisational responses.
- This problem has been growing for a decade, reaching high levels since October 2023.
- Teachers and administrators think they know more about antisemitism and how to tackle it than they actually do.
- There is no consistent system-wide reference point for identifying and responding to antisemitism, and while awareness of the International (IHRA) Definition of Antisemitism is high, few use it in practice.
- Antisemitism is not always recognised as a form of harm that may raise safeguarding concerns, and victims often don’t get the support they need.
- Pupils at Jewish schools often experience or fear antisemitic abuse while travelling, leading some to conceal visible signs of their Jewish identity.
- School leaders in Jewish schools carry significant additional safeguarding and security responsibilities, creating substantial workload, wellbeing and workforce pressures.
Many of our recommendations have been adopted, in full or part, by Sir David, or mirrored in these proposals, which the Government is set to accept in full.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s spokespeople spoke to the media about the implications of the report, which showcases what Jewish children are going through in this country. Watch us on TalkTV and GB News.
British schools have utterly failed in their duty of care to protect their Jewish pupils and educate their peers not to hate Jews, while Jewish schools are burdened with security responsibilities on top of education.
The Jewish community already knows all this, but it’s vital that the country starts to understand the gravity of what is happening. It’s not just the victims who matter but the perpetrators, who are the future citizens and leaders of this country – and their teachers.
No doubt politicians will emerge to wishfully insist – contrary to the evidence – that ‘there is no place for antisemitism in our schools’. But of course there is – there is lots of it. Sir David has shown that.
The discussion must now turn to why. Pupils are being radicalised online, at home and even in the classroom, often with the blessing of callous, agenda-driven teachers’ unions obsessed with demonising the Jewish state and anyone who dares identify with it, as naturally most Jews do.
Sir David’s recommendations are a first step to tackle this abominable development in British education, and we welcome the adoption or mirroring of many recommendations that we made to the review.
The Government has now accepted the recommendations of Sir David’s report, but it must immediately move to implement them – before it’s too late.
Education Secretary Lucy Powell acknowledged in Parliament that fighting antisemitism is a “generational challenge,” and both Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott and Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson spoke about the horrendous impact that antisemitism has on Jewish pupils and their parents.
You can watch our take here.
The National Education Union (NEU) was quick out of the blocks to insist that it resolutely stands against antisemitism whle appearing to oppose practically every significant measure Sir David Bell recommended to actually fight it. You can read more here.
Why does the NEU even bother saying that it opposes antisemitism, when all the evidence suggests otherwise?
Unions have made an enormous contribution to the immiseration of British Jews and the creation of a hostile environment in schools for Jewish teachers and pupils. They are part of the problem, and show no signs of wishing to become part of the solution.
You cannot fight antisemitism if you don’t define it. One suspects that for the NEU, that is precisely the point.
Among Sir David Bell’s recommendations were that pupils learn about Jewish identity and culture and contemporary antisemitism, and that teachers get more support to discuss sensitive and controversial issues with confidence.
That’s absolutely right, and it’s why Campaign Against Antisemitism has developed our highly-esteemed Educate Against Hate programme. For more information about bringing these sessions to your school, e-mail [email protected].
Man behind ‘Palestine poppy’ is NHS doctor who reportedly calls Israel a “cancer”
Campaign Against Antisemitism was once again on the front page of The Telegraph last week as part of the revelation that Abdul Qader Ismail, a British-Pakistani NHS trainee paediatrician and the designer of the ‘Palestine poppy’, has a history of grotesque social media output.
The ‘Palestine poppy’ is an attempt by Israel-hating activists to substitute the traditional red poppy, commemorating those who made the ultimate sacrifice in Flanders Fields, with a ‘Palestine poppy’. A “small donation” from sales will go towards charities such as Friends of Al-Aqsa, which said “Israel used the events of 7th October as a pretext to launch a genocidal war against the Palestinian people.”
In a now-deleted online post, Mr Ismail reportedly shared an image of a scientist looking down a microscope at cells bearing the Israeli flag, with a speech bubble saying: “This is the worst cancer I’ve ever seen.” There are also reports of Mr Ismail appearing to defend the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023 as “armed resistance”. You can read more here.
This is sickening, and even more so coming from a doctor charged with delivering equal treatment to all. We will be reporting him, as we have done with so many other medics whose obsessive hatred for the Jewish state has brought their profession into disrepute.
Our Director of Investigations and Enforcement, Stephen Silverman, spoke to TalkTV on the BBC’s “refreshing” stance on banning the ‘Palestine poppy’ in its upcoming Remembrance Day coverage.
In the wake of our recent documentary on antisemitism in the NHS – which you can watch here – CAA is continuing to expose the scale of the extremist rhetoric seen among healthcare practitioners, and to issue recommendations on tackling it at source.
We delivered antisemitism training to University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, where we outlined the roots of antisemitism and its manifestation in modern-day Britain.
Campaign Against Antisemitism was also pleased to join the important Jewish Doctors Conference in London, where we presented recommendations on fighting antisemitism in healthcare. The Conference helped foster community ties within the healthcare sector, and discussed the growing problem of anti-Jewish racism in the NHS.
Antisemitism is a virus. Don’t get infected. We took this message to London to spread the word about our documentary, and you can watch the video here.
Jeremy Bowen breaks BBC rules on impartiality as broadcaster faces one scandal after another
In footage of BBC News International Editor Jeremy Bowen speaking at an event, he appears to have made the claim to the audience that “It is an absolute myth to say that I don’t mention genocide on air. For me it is clear that what is happening is a genocide.”
Of course Mr Bowen thinks the war in Gaza is a genocide. He has never found a sensationalist claim against the Jewish state that he didn’t like, evidence be damned. Given his record, nobody will expect him to apologise for this slander or any of his other misreporting, least of all the BBC, which rewards him for his biased and shoddy journalism.
This is just one of several scandals that have engulfed the BBC in the past week.
- The BBC reportedly employs a man who called Hamas terrorism “resistance”. Hicham Yezza, who is the principal data scientist at the BBC’s Responsible AI division, reportedly has a history of incendiary comments relating to Hamas and Israel. Mr Yezza allegedly posted on social media that rockets being fired at Israel by Hamas were simply an attempt to “resist”, and he reportedly described Israel as “an apartheid, nuclear-armed regime – one literally built on stolen land and ethnic cleansing”. You can read more here.
- The BBC has reportedly launched an investigation into one of its employees, who is said to have shown support for Sally Rooney following reports that her publisher, Faber, will no longer sell her books in the UK due to her alleged support for Palestine Action. Megha Mohan, who works for the BBC as their gender and identity correspondent, reportedly signed an open letter along with over 140 notable figures in support of Ms Rooney. You can read more here.
- The BBC lets guest complain about MPs “letting some foreign country pull the strings”, without pushback. This is conspiracy-laden language from Irvine Welsh, who on BBC 2’s Politics Live appeared to imply that the UK’s proscription of Palestine Action was engineered by the extraordinary powers of, presumably, the Jewish state. This is a classic trope, and the BBC is either blind to this hate or happy to platform it.
- The BBC has reportedly agreed a £400,000 payout to an award-winning Jewish documentary-maker, after she has claimed she was bullied out of the Corporation due to antisemitism. You can read the full story here.
The BBC needs to explain why individuals with these views are working at and platformed by the Corporation, and to take action against this misconduct.
We won’t hold our breath.
Barrister under fire over alleged racist incitement while London Mayor’s Office employee suspended
Campaign Against Antisemitism has revealed that a UK barrister has posted racist incitement on social media. We can confirm that Usha Sood is a practising barrister at Gray’s Inn of Court, and her primary practice address is Trent Chambers in Nottingham. She was previously a senior lecturer in law at Nottingham Trent University.
Ms Sood has a history of incendiary and hateful rhetoric towards Jews. This includes posts such as asking why the Brits and Americans didn’t receive Jews seeking asylum in the 1930s, saying that “Maybe [they had] a prescient sense of how inhuman, grasping and genocidal they would become?”
You can read more here.
Is this what passes as professional concern for human rights nowadays? We are submitting a complaint to the Bar Standards Board and our lawyers are examining potential further action.
Meanwhile, an employee of the Mayor of London has been suspended over his alleged support for terror.
Nabil Al-Kinani, an Iraqi refugee who manages the Mayor of London’s land portfolio as a Development Manager for the Royal Docks, reportedly posted on a now-deleted Instagram account a reference to the 7th October 2023 Hamas massacre as “The Day of Glorious Crossing”. You can read about his other alleged posts here.
It’s bad enough that our immigration system permits extremists to enter and stay in our country, but employing them in the public sector on prestigious projects adds insult to injury.
We understand that, after we called for an investigation, Mr Al-Kinani has been suspended. If the allegations are borne out in what must be a quick review, the Mayor’s Office must fire Mr Al-Kinani.
Fewer than one in ten British Jews are satisfied with Sadiq Khan’s performance in relation to the Jewish community since 7th October 2023. A robust response to these revelations may begin to restore that battered trust.
Inspired by Greens’ ‘Zionism is racism’ policy, students move against Zionists on campus
A pro-Palestine student organisation at the University of Glasgow has reportedly attempted to ban Zionists attending university societies by designating Zionism as a “racist ideology”.
The group, Glasgow University Justice for Palestine Society, is understood to have distributed flyers during a freshers’ fair urging other student societies to change their constitutions by listing Zionism as a form of racism in their membership policies, in order to join “the campaign to create a Zionist-free campus”.
You can read more here.
This is the chilling impact of the Green Party’s “Zionism is Racism” motion, which has emboldened groups like these to follow suit and openly discriminate against those who believe in what is an integral part of Jewish identity.
That is all the more reason for us to have referred the Greens to the EHRC.
In parallel, the National Student Conference for Palestine, which was held at the weekend, was reportedly run by the Palestinian Youth Movement. CAA has previously raised concerns about the group, footage from whose summer camp showed children being encouraged to chant “We will crush Zionism” and “Young people, rise up, our revolution is an Arab revolution.” You can read more about the group’s worrying alleged links here.
So much of the fight against antisemitism today is educating around when reasonable criticism of Israel ends and racism begins.
In our latest episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism, Elie speaks to Jake Wallis Simons about exactly that.
You can watch it here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Radicals want to copy France riots in the UK
Campaign Against Antisemitism is aware that a group with extremist views is organising protests across the UK on 20th November under the umbrella of a wider “International Youth Day of Action”.
The planned demonstrations led by International Youth Strike appear to be a copycat protest in response to the ongoing riots in France that have spilled out into other European countries.
Rioters in France ransacked a synagogue and there are multiple reports of other Jewish sites being hit, showing once again that Jews are fair game. This protest is being advertised with the colours of the Palestinian Authority flag, so it’s as clear as day what it portends, and the authorities must act preemptively.
The police keep refusing to restrict or ban Palestine hate marches because they don’t cross the threshold of “serious disruption”, no matter how predictable the criminality or number of arrests they end up having to make.
But this protest, explicitly inspired by violent riots in Europe that have attacked businesses, burned down schools and town halls and targeted Jewish institutions – which you can read about here – must surely meet the bar.
Young, radicalised and answering for their hate
From Nazi salutes to murder plots, this past week’s court cases show just how young those drawn into anti-Jewish hatred have become.
- Johannes Kongsnes Natland, nineteen, has been sentenced to twenty years in prison after he was found guilty of conspiracy to murder. Counterterrorism police officers found that Mr Kongsnes Natland was recruited by a Swedish organised crime group which has links to the Iranian Government and was sanctioned by the UK Government last year “due to their involvement in violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of the Iranian regime”. You can read more about the case here.
- Kamil Mach, nineteen, pleaded guilty to racially or religiously aggravated harassment after performing a Nazi salute outside a synagogue in Borehamwood in May. You can read more here.
- Damian Woolfenden, eighteen, has pleaded guilty to twelve charges including publishing material intended to stir up racial hatred against Jews, and disseminating the contents of a terrorist publication. These included sharing the live-streamed video of the 2019 Christchurch attacker Brenton Tarrant on White Pilled TV, a self-described “Pro-White Platform.” It has reportedly since been viewed 1,000 times. You can read more here.
Also this week, revolting neo-Nazi graffiti was found at Blackpool Reform Synagogue. The graffiti included the numbers 1488, widely recognised as a white supremacist symbol – you can read more here.
In Southend, five years after MP Sir David Amess was murdered by a supporter of Islamic State, people have been filmed spitting in the face of his statue. The clips were shared on social media by a Palestine activist calling himself “Angry Jesus”, who reportedly denies being one of those who spat. You can find more information here.
Between the schools report and these cases, one can never be too young for antisemitism. Hatred of Jews is being passed to a new generation, and CAA will make sure that every one of them who acts on it is held to account.
The fight against antisemitism among young people is on, and it is urgent.
We are pleased that Sir David Bell carefully considered our recommendations and adopted or echoed many of them in his proposals, which the Government has accepted.
We are also thrilled with how many schools and professional associations continue to take up our offers of education and training.
If your school, employer or association is interested in learning from us, please contact us at [email protected].
