Students to Protest Israeli Ambassador invited by Oxford Union – The Oxford Student – Oxford Student
The Oxford Union announced on Wednesday evening an event featuring Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the UK since 2020. Hotovely is further known for highly controversial views about Palestinians and about Israel’s claims to the West Bank. Prominent members and parts of the British Jewish community have also spoken out against Hotovely’s appointment, including the organisation Na’amod: British Jews Against Occupation.
Hotovely has previously appeared before the Cambridge…….
The Oxford Union announced on Wednesday evening an event featuring Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the UK since 2020. Hotovely is further known for highly controversial views about Palestinians and about Israel’s claims to the West Bank. Prominent members and parts of the British Jewish community have also spoken out against Hotovely’s appointment, including the organisation Na’amod: British Jews Against Occupation.
Hotovely has previously appeared before the Cambridge Union in February and the LSE in November. Students and other protesters organised large demonstrations at both events, with the latter event ending in Hotovely being escorted to her car by security.
Members of the student body at Oxford have similarly expressed opposition against Tzipi’s appearance. The Oxford Students’ Palestine Society further plans to organise a protest outside the Oxford Union: “We are calling on everyone to join us outside the Union at 5pm to show Hotovely that she and the Apartheid regime she represents are not welcome in our city. Please join us to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
The statement given for the protest also criticised Hotovely’s political track record: “Hotovely makes no secret of her racism: [she] has repeatedly called for the annexation of all Palestinian land, pushed for the expansion of racially segregated settlements and incited violent attacks against Palestinians, claiming they are ‘thieves of history.’ She describes the Nakba of 1948, during which 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes, as an ‘Arab lie.’
“Hotovely has asserted that the entire West Bank belongs to Israelis alone: ‘This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that.’ She also supports the extreme fascist group the Lehava, and has claimed that it is important to ‘prevent mixed [Arab and Jewish] marriages.’ She makes no secret of her attempts to erase the history and the very existence of the Palestinian people.”
Hotovely has repeatedly asserted that the entirety of the West Bank belongs to Israel. She has also been criticised for directing racist insults at Arab members of the Knesset (the Israeli legislative assembly), calling them ‘thieves of history:’ “the Palestinians don’t have kings and they don’t have heritage sites”. Hotovely further denied the occurrence of the Nakba, the forced and often violent displacement of Palestinians after the founding of Israel, in a 2020 speech hosted by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Israel has vehemently denied any blame for this displacement, claiming instead that displacement and violence were either spontaneous or mutual and the result of war.
As the above students’ statement …….
