Students who threaten or intimidate university staff should be expelled, the UK government’s antisemitism adviser has said, after masked protesters allegedly threatened to behead an economics professor during a lecture.

John Mann, a former Labour MP who now sits in the House of Lords, has defended Michael Ben-Gad, a professor of economics at City St George’s, University of London, after pro-Palestinian activists called for him to be sacked and labelled him a “terrorist” because he served in the Israeli Defence Force.

More than 1,000 academics from across the UK have also signed a statement supporting the professor, warning that the campaign against him “sets a precedent under which others could be targeted in the future”.

Signatories include faculty from Imperial College London and the University of Oxford, who said they “deplore any campaign that seeks to intimidate and drive out lecturers because they are Israeli, Jewish, or members of any other group”.

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Ben-Gad, who has worked at City since 2008 and served as head of department from 2010 to 2013, told Sky News this week that his lecture had been invaded by protesters who “came right up to me and screamed in my face, called me a war criminal and a Nazi”.

“They refused to leave, they were masked. One of them made a threat about having my head chopped off.” 

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Videos posted online by a group calling itself City Action for Palestine show masked protesters confronting Ben-Gad and chanting “all terrorists off our campus” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

“Free speech does not allow university, college or other educational staff to be hassled [or] intimidated at their place of work,” Mann told ̽����Ƶ.

“What happened is the antithesis of free speech. Those who threaten in this way should be immediately expelled from higher education.

“The burning of books, the breaking up of lectures and the targeting of individual academics and other educational staff is the same thing – an attack on free speech and democracy. The sanctioning should be actioned accordingly,” said Mann, who has served numerous governments as an independent adviser on antisemitism since 2019.

Mann’s intervention followed a statement by the Royal Economic Society (RES) published on 24 October that said it was “deeply concerned by reports that an academic economist has been publicly harassed at a London university because they are Israeli” and that it was “in direct contact with the individual concerned and with the university”.

The society added: “Targeting an individual in this manner is unacceptable. It undermines the safety and dignity of members of the academic community and has no place in a university setting.”

City president Anthony Finkelstein has also condemned the actions of what he called a “small, masked group of individuals from a group unaffiliated with this university”.

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Supporters said the campaign against Ben-Gad risked chilling academic freedom and deterring open discussion of Israel and the Middle East within universities.

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A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism told ̽����Ƶ that “a deluge of abuse and intimidation has overwhelmed Jewish students and staff on university campuses across the country” since the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel.

“The vicious campaign to target Professor Ben-Gad is the latest manifestation of this alarming and dangerous rise in antisemitic harassment within these environments,” they added.

“It is generally recognised that the normalisation over the last two years of the kind of hateful rhetoric being directed at him was a factor in the terrorist atrocity in Manchester at the beginning of this month, in which two Jews were murdered while attending synagogue on Yom Kippur.

"The behaviour of the students involved was not only reprehensible, but the incident demonstrates the environment that has been allowed to develop at City, as well as on campuses across the country.”

The spokesperson said that “for all their virtuous anti-racism rhetoric, our universities have become epicentres of Jew-hatred. Something is desperately wrong”.

“City St George’s must investigate these incidents immediately and report them to the police where necessary. We are writing to the university.”

A university spokesperson said: “City St George's fully supports and upholds freedom of expression within the law and is willing to engage in lawful discussion and debate across the full range of topics.

“However, unlawful and repugnant attempts to obstruct and interfere with our academic operations are another thing entirely, and the university will not tolerate the harassment of its staff and students.

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“We reject the unlawful actions of this small group of individuals that is neither affiliated with the university nor its students’ union. We are investigating the incident. We will continue to support and protect our staff and students, including Michael, who has the full support of the university and its senior management team, as well as colleagues of all faiths and backgrounds.”

tash.mosheim@timeshighereducation.com