UK students shun Israeli envoy speech

Israeli deputy ambassador to Britain has been forced to flee from a British university campus after his address was disrupted by angry students chanting “free free Palestine”.

A YouTube video posted on February 21 shows the students braving security guards and university officials’ threats that protesters would face repercussions if they do not halt their action against Alon Roth-Snir, forcing him to abandon his speech at Essex University in Colchester last week.

The footage shows a university official, apparently Thomas Scotto, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, approaching the students and warning them “I know about five of you. If you continue, you will be brought up on charges against university ordinances which prohibit disruption of a lecture”.

However, the continuation of the protest both inside and outside the university’s lecture theater, where Roth-Snir was speaking, forced him to abandon.

The protest was organized by Palestine Solidarity Group of the Essex University and the Socialist Worker Student Society, which had called for a ban on Soth-Snir’s speech.

Head of the university’s Students’ Union Nathan Bolton later was quoted by the Electronic Intifada weblog as saying that the protest outside was attended by around 200 to 250 students while another 20 to 30 were present inside the theater.

Roth-Snir was reportedly interrupted only five minutes into his speech with a member of the audience shouting “we are not here to be brainwashed”.