University of Nottingham event featuring controversial cleric who described Jews as “a cowardly nation” is postponed
An event organised by a society at the University of Nottingham which was set to feature a controversial cleric, who had previously described Jews as “a cowardly nation”, has been postponed.
Nottingham University Islamic Society invited Sheikh Asrar Rashid, a controversial cleric in Birmingham, to give a talk on “The End of Times”.
Mr Rashid, who is reported to have said that Hitler did Jews “a favour”, was initially advertised by the Society in a Facebook post on 7th December, scheduled to appear at the University’s Law and Social Science building.
However, on 10th December, a further announcement was made stating that the event would instead be held at the Lenton Muslim Centre.
The next day, the Society wrote that the event was “postponed until further notice due to unforeseen circumstances”.
A spokesperson for the University of Nottingham Students Union said that it had been “made aware of an invitation issued by the Islamic Society to Asrar Rashid to address its members. The Students’ Union has requested a postponement of the event to ensure that the agreed process for issuing such speaker invitations has been followed and allows us to determine whether the event can be held peacefully and safely for all those concerned,” adding: “Our priority is, and always will be, for all of our student members and it is of the utmost importance to us that we make sure all Students’ Union activity is safe, inclusive, dignified, respectful, and responsible.”
However, a Nottingham Jewish Society spokesperson said that its members were “appalled” by the invitation of Mr Rashid, and said that “This invitation should never have been approved in the first place, and our complaints should have been taken seriously and been treated discretely by the University and Students’ Union. Speakers who seek to incite hatred should not be invited to speak at our university.”
Mr Rashid has reportedly claimed that “By the 1940s, Hitler did a favour for the Jews that the Jews now were favoured by Europe.” Last year, the cleric stood by his description of Jews as “a cowardly nation” and call for a “jihad” on Israel.
Whilst commenting on last year’s violence in Israel and Gaza during a panel discussion, Mr Rashid was quoted as saying: “Personally, I believe the only solution is jihad, and a call for jihad, and an announcement for jihad by Muslim majority states that we have.
“Even surgical strikes or wallpaper strikes, the type that Saddam Hussein did in the early Nineties, I believe. Thirty-nine rockets he fired into Tel Aviv and every Jew was running into his shelter. Those with a European passport would be running back to Europe.”
“You see the way they react to Katyusha missiles or Qassam missiles that do not even kill anyone, they run into their shelters so the Jews are known as…a cowardly nation.”
Following criticism from the JC, which Mr Rashid described as a “Zionist newspaper”, he defended his comments on Facebook and Twitter, writing that the term “Jews” was “used in the same vein as the mainstream media regularly employ ‘Muslim’, ‘Arabs’, or ‘Palestinian’.”
He went on to say: “This context also reflects my statements that the ‘Jews are known as a cowardly nation’, pertaining to the State of Israel and its actions against the Palestinians where women and children are indiscriminately killed.”
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion” is an example of antisemitism, as is “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective.”
