Dave Watts (T. Hinker) ❎ 🦖🇮🇱

Tomorrow, on the third anniversary of October 7, 'pro-Palestinian' students from the London Universities plan to march between their campuses. They did the same last year. There are 365 days in a year. Yet they have chosen the anniversary of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. One can therefore only conclude they are marching in support of Hamas's genocidal attacks. The Met has asked them to change the date, but says it can't ban the march over its timing. We can debate that but whether it goes ahead is now beside the point. What is clear - and this amplifies what we knew already - is that there are many universities, in London and across the country, where the poison is already too deep-rooted to extract. This has been allowed to fester for years by the universities themselves. And no doubt it was emboldened by the Green Party on Sunday. If Zionism is racism. If the Jewish State is uniquely evil. If its supporters are collectively racist - then why wouldn't you decide to march to celebrate and glorify the deaths, the rapes, the hostage-taking, the terror? Like spoilt children, these people have been accommodated and indulged for a long time now - well before 7/10. And when you don't say "no" to a child, they push the boundaries of what is acceptable further and further. We are now at the point where academia not only doesn't say “no” - in places it is actively saying YES! Last month, at my UCL graduation, a student walked across the stage holding a sign: “UCL funds genocide.” Most of the room cheered. And on the stage, bizarrely clapping along, was the vice-provost - lending the university's authority to a modern blood libel. We are in a dangerous and sad place as a society. I spoke to @NickFerrariLBC about it this morning 👇