Jewish students at St Andrews were devastated when an email, sent to all 10,000 students, from their Rector arrived, which they felt was divisive and incited hatred.
The formal role of the Rector at St Andrews, who is elected by students, is to preside at meetings of the University Court. This is the highest governing body of the University and oversees the management of the University which is led by the Principal. The Rector also plays an informal, pastoral role for students.
The Rector’s email called for an immediate ceasefire, without demanding the release of all the Israeli hostages. It described how a vigil was held at the university following “weeks of genocidal attacks by the Israeli government against Gaza”. Her email also asked the students to condemn “practices such as apartheid, siege, illegal occupation and collective punishment observed in the treatment of Palestinians.”
The email included links to guides to Boycotting Israel, and template letters to MPs to demand a ceasefire.
In response to a request by students to do something about this, UKLFI Charitable Trust has produced a rebuttal to the Rector’s email, which it has sent to the Principal of St Andrews and to the Rector. UKLFI has requested that the Principal and the Rector send the rebuttal out to all 10,000 students to rectify the misinformation sent out by the Rector.
UKLFI’s response explains that the huge Palestinian casualty figures, cited by the Rector, are a terrible tragedy but the Hamas Ministry of Health is the only source of information. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants nor reports on whether Palestinians are killed by Israeli or Palestinian fire.
UKLFI explained that Israel was not illegally occupying Gaza – it had unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza in 2005. UKLFI also explains that Israel is not carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
Regarding the Rector’s accusation of “apartheid” UKLFI pointed out that there is no apartheid on the part of Israel in Gaza since the entire population is Muslim and no Jew is able to live there. Nor is there apartheid in Israel, where Arab citizens are free to become doctors, lawyers, members of government and of the armed forces etc.
The current Rector, Stella Maris, was elected by the students in October 2023. She had campaigned on a manifesto of promising to make students feel safe and included. Jewish students feel that she has now broken this promise.
A spokesperson for UKLFI commented “Ms Maris’s email shows a degree of naivety by her acceptance of Hamas’s statistics and Hamas’s version of events, even though Hamas is a proscribed terrorist group that carried out a horrific massacre, and one of its leaders has vowed to do the same again and again until Israel is annihilated. In our view she has abused her position as Rector by sending out this statement, and incited hatred amongst the students, rather than making them feel safe and included.”
