On Oct. 7, 2023, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas carried out the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust, a pogrom which included mass murder, the widespread rape of men, women and girls, torture, mutilation and hostage-taking.
However, the reaction by many to the savage violence by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their willing executioners was, contrary to the support and solidarity you’d expect after a historically persecuted minority was again victimised by racist extremists, to double down on their hatred of Israel and Jews.
Indeed, in the statements of dozens of college organizations, and marches on the streets of London and New York City, we saw not only an unwillingness to condemn Hamas’s savagery, but something closer to an outright celebration of their antisemitic violence.
This was followed by a tsunami of antisemitic incidents in Western cities in Europe and North America, with both the UK and US recording record levels of anti-Jewish incidents in the aftermath of the attack – including on university campuses.
The reaction by the Guardian to the massacre and its aftermath was to turn their institutional hatred of Israel up to the next level, while gaslighting diaspora Jews on the hostility and danger they were facing.
A recent Guardian article (“Surge in antisemitism investigations at US universities after October 7 attacks, data shows“, Nov 1), is written by Alice Speri – who, tellingly, worked, through March 2025 at Al Jazeera as a senior producer covering foreign policy, conflict, and human rights – and represents another new low for the outlet in its gaslighting of Jews about the racism they experience.
Speri, uncritically citing a report by the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), uses most of her 1600 word article to argue that “pro-Israel” groups have, since Oct. 7, cynically used false claims of antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel.
Though this propagandistic tactic by those in the anti-Zionist movement (referred to as the Livingstone Formulation) is not new, Speri’s piece – which is a news article, not an op-ed – employs an especially dishonest method of reaching the desired conclusion: suggesting that the huge increase in antisemitism probes of US universities over the past two years is itself evidence of a conspiracy to silence pro-Palestinian voices, while never assessing the merits of the complaints themselves.
The report co-authored by MESA, which adopted a BDS resolution in 2022, largely rests on the premise that antisemitism probes can’t be trusted because many of them have been initiated by pro-Israel or ‘right-wing’ groups. The report even criticises 2024 advice from the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) that protesters who target Jewish students by placing stamps on their campus mailboxes with words “stop stealing Palestinian lands” are engaging in antisemitism.
Further, the Guardian report cites data – the “smoking gun” – on the dramatic increase in antisemitism probes since Oct. 7 to putatively prove a conspiracy by pro-Israel groups to silence pro-Palestinian students.
Here’s the MESA graph in question:
However, neither MESA nor the Guardian bothered to check the data on antisemitic incidents on campus, which, as you’ll see in the following graph, is actually consistent with the rise in antisemitism probes since Oct. 7th:
Moreover, the Guardian article by Spiers was – save one quote near the end of the piece by Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs – devoid of even the appearance of fairness or balance.
If the Guardian reporter wanted to provide balance to her copy and paste of the MESA report, she would noted disturbing post-Oct. 7 polling showing that more than four in five American Jewish students surveyed (83.2%) said they had witnessed, experienced, or seen an example of at least one antisemitic incident on campus. About 41% of Jewish students said they felt the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus.
So, once again, the Guardian is effectively accusing Jews of having acted in bad faith, or lying, when they’ve reported antisemitism to campus authorities, police or pollsters.
The moral rot within institutions like the Guardian that have effectively rendered both the Oct. 7th pogrom and the appalling antisemitic response in the West to Hamas’s barbarism as a non-event can’t be overstated.
One of the problems is pure and genuine ignorance derived from growing up wiithout ever having met Jews – who to be fair are mostly in a limited area of a few big cities – or judging others by one[‘s Christian] self. This is then easily abused by cynical propagandists both pre – Shoah and since. It is easy enoug to say tha tRE has changed and tries ot explain various faiths BUT having taught 11 – 16 year olds – all conscripts – they shut their ears half the time and RE like music and poetry might be relaxing but many pupils and parents do not see it as important – in the sense of getting you a job.
As a student in the early 60’s I was asked whether rabbis were celibate !!! whether non – Jews could visit a synagogue – so I arranged with a lady friend to take the classmates in question to the ladies’ gallery of Princess Rd, L’pool one Saturday morning. They enjoyed it. Also why synagogue [buildings] were shut – to keep out opportunistic trouble makers…. Sadly since those relatively happy years Paris churches are shut except at prayer time because of thieves and Islamists so I could not show my then young family the splendid rood screen of St Etienne.