We write in response to an article published in the Daily Mail entitled “Cambridge University debate descends into farce after motion calling for solidarity with Palestine was stopped amid concerns it risked 'inciting violence’”. This has been combined with an article on ‘cancel culture’ – which, in no uncertain terms, uses slanders and lies to censor and silence Palestinian solidarity. 

Attacks from right wing rags, such as the Mail and the Telegraph, aim to tar those that place the blame for the war with Netanyahu, the Zionist ruling class and the Western imperialists as ‘terrorist sympathisers’. We wholly condemn this libellous attack. 

The article deals with a motion which the President of the Cambridge Marxist Society proposed to the Students’ Council on 23rd October. This noted the recent murder of thousands of Palestinians by the Israeli state and called for mass uprisings to end the decades of imperialist occupation.

Several zionist students tried to shut down the debate by labelling the motion ‘antisemitic’. The Daily Mail, following the lead of the student newspaper Varsity, reproduced these slanders. Varsity, shamefully, chopped up the comment that the proposer of the motion provided in order to further distort their position.

Fergus Kirman, the Student Union president, has now written to the government asking for an exemption to ‘free speech’ legislation so he can suppress the motion. This is absolutely scandalous.

Just to set the record straight: All of these slanders rely on lies, because history is not on their side. 

They suggest that the motion’s call for “mass uprisings” is an advocation of violence like the Hamas terrorist attacks. This is clearly untrue. The proposer referred to the First Intifada as an example. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of Palestinian history knows that the First Intifada in the 1980s was a mass movement based on class struggle methods such as strikes, protests, local committees, civil disobedience and tax revolts. 

By way of journalistic acrobatics, the Mail have described it as “a series of terror attacks in Israel which primarily targeted civilians and led to the murder of hundreds of Israelis”, in order to paint the motion as calling for terrorism. We reject this attempt to rewrite history.

The right-wing press has a history of singling out Cambridge students for harassment. The proposer of the motion was named in full. We consider this to be a clear case of intimidation, singling out activists in order to intimidate them and shut down debate.

• We demand that the Daily Mail apologise for publishing the name of the proposer of the motion and inciting harassment against them.
  
• We also demand retraction from the Mail, Varsity, and any other media outlet which should print such lies.
  
• These right-wing rags, the Murdoch press, will not tell the truth voluntarily. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) must lead the way, campaigning against these media slanders. Journalists should refuse to write such biased pieces, and printers to publish them.

Furthermore, we reject attempts to bully and intimidate pro-Palestinian activists across the board.

• We condemn the suspension of UCL Marxist society and the actions of Brunel University in placing the Palestinian Society under investigation.
  
• We condemn the actions of the University of Oxford in threatening the proposers of a pro-Palestinian motion in the UCU branch with the loss of their jobs.
  
• We demand that pro-Palestinian speakers and societies be allowed to meet to put forward their views on university campuses.
  
• We consider the suppression of these views to be a brazen attack on free speech, deliberately applied in order to cover up for the crimes against humanity being carried out by the Israeli state, supported by our own imperialist government.

This must be resisted by collective action here in the UK. We call on the Universities and College Union (UCU) and the National Union of Students (NUS) to:

• Defend any union members, staff and students who are threatened with disciplinary action for showing solidarity with the Palestinian people or raising criticisms of Israeli and British imperialism.
  
• Release a public statement responding to and condemning the university and media’s attacks.
  
• Launch a campaign in defence of freedom of speech and academic freedoms, in association with the NUS and other campus unions, particularly over the question of Palestine solidarity.

We will not be intimidated!

Signed

Cambridge Marxist Society
Socialist Appeal, Cambridge
Lior Griffoul
Khaled Malachi
Pascal Salzbrenner (Cambridge UCU, personal capacity)
Alex Axton
Ruth Logan
Jack walton
Ellis Hedges
JS
Long Road Communist Society
Brooke Woods
Sara - UCU Edinburgh
Lucy Bedwell
Matt
Anna Ivaskevica
Ben Hollings
Leeds University Marxist Society
Arsalan (personal capacity) Unite the Union
Kevan Kennedy, UCU Cambridge Branch.
Evan Roberts
Leonardo Gionleka
Misha Mir
Jaroslav Kuslevic
Zheran Xie
Phil Baker, Loughborough UCU, personal capacity
Ruari Paterson-Achenbach
Jack Preston
Jo (personal capacity) Anglia Ruskin University
Azhar Nayyar
Dave Newbold
Thomas Fowles
John Russell, Unison Norfolk County Branch
UEA Marxist Society
Norwich Socialist Appeal
Georgie Gibson
Melanie woods
Paige
Riley
Tiago Azevedo, CUCU member
Adrian Dimitrov
Callie McIntyre, University of Sheffield UCU
Sheffield Hallam Marxist Society
Adrienne Martin
Khadija
M Murpy UniteComm. NEYH region pers cap
Danai Avgeri, Cambridge UCU
Eden Mackenzie
Penny Voyce, personal capacity
Ester Eriksson
Fenton Davoren
Alex Charlton
Elena Simon
Dominic Holland, UCU Sheffield
Evan Minniti, Students for Socialist Revolution at University of California, Irvine.
Adam Morris
Jacob Berkel, Students for Socialist Revolution at UC Irvine
Ben Cownley, UTAW
Kent Communists
Chase Birkeland, Studentsfor Socialist Revolution at University of California San Diego
Nadia Mansoor
Jennifer
Alexander Machado Huhtanen
Tara Rai
Mia Jimenez, Students for Socialist Revolution at University of California Irvine
Sjoerd Smit