LONDON (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime’s extreme right-wing ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was met by student protestors at Cambridge University on Tuesday in a demonstration reminiscent of the anti-apartheid campaign against the white minority regime in South Africa.
Hotovely, who served as a settlement minister under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was invited to address the Cambridge Union’s debating society to deliver a “monologue”. Student groups slammed the decision, citing the 42-year-old ambassador’s long track record of deeply hostile and racist ant-Palestinian remarks.
“Hotovely is a proud supporter of Israeli settler colonialism,” wrote students in an open letter, “and an open advocate of a ‘Greater Israel’.” They expressed their dismay that she had been invited to address the union.
While deputy foreign minister, Hotovely asserted that the entire West Bank belongs to Zionists alone, “This land is ours,” she said. “All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologize for that.”
As the Zionist envoy spoke, the protesters carrying drums and placards moved to the back of the building where the ambassador’s convoy was parked, and started shouting slogans via a sound speaker.
They then staged a sit-in and blocked the entrance to the car park, as police armed with tasers attempted to clear the protest.
Sources inside the union who attended the talks told MEE that the Zionist ambassador’s speech was cut short due to the noise from the protests.
The students broke their sit-in after being told that the protest successfully disrupted Hotovely’s speech.
The Zionist envoy was later shielded by an umbrella and bundled into her car as protesters remained outside chanting slogans against her.
A Cambridge University Palestine Society spokesperson, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the protest had been organized in opposition to the “system” Hotovely represents.
“Hotovely represents and upholds a regime apparatus which multiple organizations have named as committing crimes against humanity and apartheid,” the spokesperson told MEE, adding that no one who represents an entity “engaging in illegal practices and abuse of human rights” should be given a platform in our city and university.
“This protest is not only about condemning Hotovely as an individual and what she has said but rejecting the practices she engages in and represent, such as rallying settlers to be violent to Palestinians and engage in illegal practices and abuse of human right.”
In November last year, hundreds of furious students also gathered outside the London School of Economics to condemn the university after its debate society invited Hotovely to deliver a lecture on the Israel-Palestine conflict at an event.
Hotovely made national headlines when footage of her being rushed into her car as student activists protested against her presence on campus was posted online.
Appointed in 2020, Hotovely has been condemned over comments she made targeting Arabs and Islam. She once reportedly denied Palestine’s existence and notoriously said the Nakba was “a great Arab lie.” She has also opposed any Palestinian claim to the occupied West Bank, Gaza, or East Al-Quds, while supporting the expansion of Zionist settlements.