Masked anti-Israel activists barged into a City St George’s, University of London class on Wednesday to demand the firing of the Israeli lecturer, who told Sky News that one of the students had threatened to behead him.
The keffiyeh-clad activists disrupted the class by berating Prof. Michael Ben-Gad for his mandatory service in the IDF during the 1980s, urging students to leave his lecture. They decried Ben-Gad as a “terrorist” and “war criminal.”
“He’s killed innocent people, this is not someone to learn from, this is someone to be tried at The Hague,” said one activist, according to a video published by the Association of Student Activism for Palestine (ASAP). “You should all as conscious students walk out because this professor, his hands are stained off of genocide [sic].”
In an interview with Sky News, Ben-Gad said that one of the activists “made a threat about having my head chopped off.”
City action for Palestine demanded the termination of Ben-Gad's contract
Activists had launched a campaign against the economics professor since at least October 12, when City Action for Palestine published on Instagram a series of demands, including the termination of Ben-Gad’s contract, an apology by the university, and that the institution not hire former IDF soldiers in the future.
CAP accused Ben-Gad of being a war criminal because he served in the military during the early years of the First Lebanon War. In addition to his mandatory military service, the activists took issue that he studied “in the occupied territories” at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and worked “in a genocidal society” at the University of Haifa and the Bank of Israel.
Last Thursday, protesters held demonstrations at the university, according to CAP videos, littering the building floor with anti-Israel leaflets and posters. Security cleared screaming protesters from the hall.
“There is a terrorist on campus!” shouted one woman. “He killed my people in Lebanon!”
Activists have been promoting a petition demanding the termination of Ben-Gad, which had gained 418 signatures by the time of writing.
An opposing Tuesday petition in support of Ben-Gad gathered the signatures of almost 1,100 academics from the UK and around the world. The academics expressed concern about the “targeted harassment” of Ben-Gad, calling the branding of him as a terrorist or war criminal “libelous.”
“Regardless of diverse views on the recent Gaza war and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we deplore any campaign that seeks to intimidate and drive out lecturers because they are Israeli, Jewish, or members of any other group,” read the open letter.
The university did not immediately respond to requests for comment.