Punished for the Israeli flag – absurd demands on students in Britain

British universities are accused of double standards: a Royal Holloway student was expelled for a joke about a keffiyeh, while victims of harassment by pro-Palestinian activists were left unprotected. At King's College, a student was forced to write an essay about the harm of the Israeli flag.

British universities are accused of double standards regarding students in the context of the Middle East conflict. At Royal Holloway, University of London, student Brodie Mitchell, who is not Jewish, was expelled for nine weeks and evicted from campus for joking about an activist's keffiyeh, comparing it to a kitchen towel. Meanwhile, since autumn 2025, Mitchell and his Jewish friend have been subjected to a campaign of psychological terror by two supporters of the Palestinian movement: they received up to ten calls per hour, including at night, with threats and anti-Semitic insults, including 'fucking Jew'. Despite evidence, the police did not investigate the case, and the university imposed only vague sanctions. The student union president, Hooda El-Jamal, who had previously been required to avoid contact with Mitchell, published a video calling him 'the perpetrator of a racist Islamophobic attack', which the administration ignored. At King's College London, a student named N. was punished for unfurling the Israeli flag and accusing a lecturer of supporting extremists: he was assigned a five-thousand-word essay, one thousand of which must justify why waving the Israeli flag is wrong. The author notes an imbalance: Palestinian symbols are freely used, while Israeli ones are punished.