As rhetoric heats up over links between Irish and Israeli universities, some Jewish students on campus say they feel isolated and fearful. At a recent demonstration outside UCD’s O’Reilly Hall, hundreds of students and faculty members gathered at a Palestinian solidarity demonstration. The stated aim of the gathering, organised by the university’s students’ union and the Academics for Palestine group, was to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and a boycott of Israeli institutions.
However, included among placards such as “stop the Gaza bombing” was a flag near the top of the platform for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The group, designated as a terrorist organisation by the EU and other jurisdictions, has praised the Hamas massacre of an estimated 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, on October 7th last. For Dr Edward Burke, assistant professor in UCD’s school of history, it is the latest troubling incident for Jewish students and staff who are also mourning the “worst anti-Semitic atrocity committed this century”