A university professor has vowed to continue teaching after pro-Palestinian students disrupted his lecture, made a threat to behead him and called for him to be sacked.
Michael Ben-Gad, professor of economics at City St George’s, University of London, told Sky News he was also branded a terrorist because of links to Israel’s military, after he was conscripted to serve in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in the 1980s.
“It started, apparently on the same day as the start of the ceasefire [between Israel and Hamas]… which I don’t think is necessarily coincidental.
“There’s a whole industry that has developed about vilifying Israel, by extension, Jews. And they’re now looking for new targets.”
Mr Ben-Gad said it was not just his military service that protesters were complaining about.
“The other three accusations against me are that I studied at Hebrew University, this is a 100-year-old university in Jerusalem; that I’ve taught at the University of Haifa; and I’ve worked at the central bank [of Israel].
“Broadly speaking, the accusation is that I lived in the Middle East while being Jewish. And if it’s illegal in their eyes to do that, I don’t know what they think about people who might be Jewish [and] living, let’s say, in Edgware or Golders Green.”
Footage of the protest, posted online by a group calling itself City Action for Palestine, shows protesters with their faces covered, making pro-Palestinian chants and appearing to call for Mr Ben-Gad to be sacked.
He told Sky News he had been targeted again by the same group, which disrupted his lecture on Wednesday afternoon.
“As of about an hour ago, I finished my lecture. It was invaded by protesters who came right up to me and screamed in my face, called me a war criminal and a Nazi, refused to leave… they’re masked… one of them…. made a threat about having my head chopped off.”
