The student protests were a celebration of violence, pure and simple

I spent two hours yesterday with the student protest listening carefully as it moved across Central London. There was no violence, but their chants were all about violence:

There is only one solution, intifada revolution

Long live the Intifada

Zionism shut it down

Zionists Zionists go back home

Settlers settlers go back home. Palestine is not your home

These were repeated for two hours through megaphones and echoed by the 200 marchers, many wearing black and white keffiyes to disguise their faces.

In the opening speeches at King's College, there was no mention of the Gaza ceasefire talks, no calls for a ceasefire, and no mention of a two-state solution. The crowd was urged to continue the fight for Palestine by any means necessary.

The word Intifada is based on the Arabic root intifad, meaning "shaking off." In the Middle East context, it means an armed uprising. For Israelis, it means stabbings, shootings and suicide bombings on buses, in hotels and cafes. For Palestinians, it means failed uprisings that caused chaos and destruction. For both sides, it means thousands of dead and families ripped apart by grief.

How should we understand the call for Zionists to go back home? Most Zionists are Jews, and most Jews are Zionists. Either it means Israelis should pack up and leave, ignoring the reality that it is their home. Or it means Jews should go home, which is just antisemitism. But do we really think it is ok for 200 people to march through London calling for any ethnic minority to go home?

We ignore extremist students at our peril.

In the late 1990s, the now-banned terrorist group Hizb Ut-Tahrir started to appear in universities across the UK. They held demos calling for the establishment of a global Islamic Caliphate. At meetings, they celebrated the Hamas suicide bombings that destroyed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the path to a two-state solution. At the time they were viewed as a non-violent group and not taken seriously. But they were deadly serious.

These ideas radicalised the perpetrators of the 7 July 2005 bombings in London that killed 52 people and injured 770 others. They inspired Islamic State to set up its caliphate with all the death and destruction that followed.

The path to radicalisation has been transformed since 2005 by smartphones and social media and the journey from ideas to violent action can be much shorter and go largely undetected presenting difficult and complex challenges for the police and security services. But the role of the public demonstration is still important for those wanting to propagate extremist views.

Owning iconic public spaces has long been prized as an opportunity to whip up a frenzy, energise followers and intimidate onlookers. Having the courage to take to the streets in protest can be an important first step towards other, more violent actions. It creates a more cohesive unit than likes on an app and generates far more fear in communities being targeted.

But the obsession with social media content makes demonstrations even more of a performative event as evidenced by the large numbers of people filming, posing and taking selfies. Above all, the official approval to demonstrate and the generous police escort provide a perverse aura of legitimacy to the protesters.

So when in 2025 hundreds of students choose to glorify violence against Jewish people chanting "long live the Intifada" on the anniversary of the worst attack against Jewish people since the Holocaust we should listen carefully and take them very seriously.

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James Sorene is a commentator and writer.

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