Pro-Palestinian Activists Throw Chairs, Set Off Fire Alarm, Smash Window — Despite the London Campus' 'Safe Spaces' Policy

Pro-Palestinian activists threw chairs, broke a window and set off fire alarms to try to disrupt a talk given on a London college campus by an Israeli politician who is a left-wing peace activist promoting the two-state solution, that is, separate states for Jews and Palestinians.

The British newspaper the Jewish Chronicle reported that police were called in for the Tuesday night speech by former Israeli Labor Party lawmaker Ami Ayalon, which, in theory at least, should have been safe given the “safe space” policy at King's College London.

The Chronicle reported that only 56 people were let into the room, which meant protesters who had intended to interrupt his talk were left outside.

A student who was there told the Chronicle, "The room was ambushed: banging on the windows, waving flags, bashing the door. You could hear screaming. ... It was really quite frightening inside."

Video taken from outside the event showed the mayhem as well as a broken window:

Richard Millett, a blogger who writes about Israel, attended the event and posted his observations on his blog: “As soon as the doors shut, the frustrated anti-Israel activists pounded the doors and the windows looking into the talk. They screamed ‘Free Free Palestine,’ ‘Viva Viva Palestina,’ and ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free’ and smashed a window.”

The “From the River” chant refers to the idea of wiping out the state of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Millett noted that, ironically, hanging behind Ayalon was a white board “describing the rules for ‘safe spaces’ at universities."

He noted, "But there is no ‘safe space’ for an Israeli-Jew at British universities."

The blogger wrote that the anti-Israel activists passed out leaflets falsely accusing Ayalon of war crimes when he served as head of the Shin Bet security services.

Millett wrote that they also “accused Ayalon of being ‘overtly racist’ for supporting a two-state solution because this implies ‘Israeli Jews must always be a majority … due to a fear of losing the ethnic and colonial supremacy Israel has enjoyed since 1948.’”

This video taken inside the venue gives a sense of just how noisy the interruption was:

An organizer of the Ayalon visit, Esther Endfield, said she was assaulted at the event and that chairs had been thrown at her. She also noted that fire alarms were set off on every floor of the four-story building.

"When did it become so unsafe in one of the global universities in the world that we can no longer hold an event without being scared of our safety,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

The Chronicle reported that about 20 police officers arrived to protect the event.

Jo Johnson, the British minister for universities and science, said, "Our universities should be safe spaces for students to expand their minds, and there can be no justification for violent intimidation that curtails free speech."

King’s College echoed that sentiment, issuing a statement saying that “violent protest is totally unacceptable and that we expect them to be tolerant and respectful of others’ views and opinions.”

The Union of Jewish Students said in a statement, “The fact that the police had to be called by the university in order to protect students from fellow students is a disgrace.”

The Metropolitan Police said they were investigating allegations of assault and criminal damage.