Agencies-Gaza post
Oxford union students to protest Israeli envoy invited
The Oxford Union reported on Wednesday evening an occasion featuring Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli envoy to the UK since 2020. Hotovely is further known for highly controversial opinions about Palestinians and about Israel’s insistence on the West Bank.
Hotovely has previously occurred before the Cambridge Union in February and the LSE in November. Students and other protesters organized large demonstrations at both events, with the latter occasion ending in Hotovely being accompanied to her car by security.
Associates of the student body at Oxford have similarly expressed opposition against Tzipi’s appearance. The Oxford Students’ Palestine Society further intends to organize a rally outside the Oxford Union: “We are calling on everyone to join us outside the Union at 5 pm 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 release is given for the protest also condemned 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 aggression against Palestinians, claiming they are ‘thieves of history.’ She tells 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 apologize for that.’ She also supports the extreme fascist group 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 declared that the entirety of the West Bank belongs to Israel. She has also been condemned 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 eviction, claiming instead that removal and violence were either spontaneous or mutual and the result of war.
As the above students’ declaration cites, Hotovely has also communicated disdain for intermarriage between Jewish women and Arab men. She told a hearing of the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of Women: “We must confront the fact that the country has not valued education, which is the only way to control Jewish women from forging life connections with non-Jews,”
Amnesty UK has recently labeled Israel an ‘apartheid state,’ citing unlawful killing of protesters, segregationalist policies, dispossession, and other human rights abuses. Israel has thought such accusations antisemitic, accusing Amnesty of the UK of using ‘double standards.’
Exeter’s JCR recently passed a movement in week 7 criticizing Israel and donating money to Medical Aid for Palestinians.
