Protests on US college campuses are “cancerous” and reminiscent of 1930s Germany, the president of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center told Sky News.
Speaking from Yad Vashem, the monument in the Jerusalem hills, Dani Dayan said anti-Semitism is becoming acceptable in many institutions and that leaders must take a stand.
Mr. Dayan said: “I am not opposed to people protesting against From Israel policies, even in Loop. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the calls are for the elimination of Israel regardless of its policies, and that is anti-Semitic.
The latest university protests: riot police use rubber bullets on the Los Angeles campus
“I will be the last person to oppose freedom of demonstration, freedom of opinion, but genocidal calls are genocidal.
“Even if you don’t intend to kill all the Jews in Israel, but simply expel them, simply deny them their freedoms, simply deny them the right to self-determination, that is deeply anti-Semitic.
“What we are witnessing on elite campuses, especially in the United States, is a cancerous process.
“The elimination of Israel is now part of the legitimate discourse. I would even say that it is the predominant discourse at many universities in the United States and Europe, including Columbia.”
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Police make arrests at UCLA protest
Dayan, Israel’s former consul general in New York, recently wrote a letter to the president of Columbia University urging her to “lead with moral principles.” She has not yet received a response, she said.
Recalling events at the University of Heidelberg in Germany in the mid-1930s, when the campus was purged of Jewish academics and students, Mr. Dayan said he sees comparisons to what is happening today.
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Police raid Columbia University
He said: “We are not on the eve of a Nazi regime, or anything like that, but the similarity that I do see is that an intolerant ideology, a racist ideology, is considered legitimate and is promoted when thousands of faculty, staff and students in a university appeal for the abolition of the Jewish State and the elimination of Zionism. Something is deeply rotten and must be resolved.”
At dawn on Thursday, the UCLA camp in Los Angeles was over, with rubble and rubble where the mini village of tents, gazebos and signs protested against Israel’s was in Gaza. He was once in the school’s Royce Quad.
Hundreds of California Highway Patrol officers in riot gear entered the campus and demolished the encampment.
Videos were released of riot police using rubber bullets against protesters in fierce clashes in which some protesters were arrested and taken away with their hands tied behind their backs.
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
“Order must prevail” in protests
A hard core of protesters were still resisting police and could be heard chanting and repeatedly calling for the university to sever its financial ties with Israel.
More than 100 people were arrested when New York police entered Columbia University on Tuesday night to clear out protesters.
Read more:
Saudi activist jailed for clothing choice
Former politician beats his wife to death in CCTV footage
Face of 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman revealed
Across Europe there have been regular marches against Israel and in support of the Palestinian people, attended by tens of thousands.
In the United Kingdom, the prime minister’s spokesman has said that the police will have the support of Downing Street if they are forced to break up demonstrations at universities.