From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Israeli professor in London says masked students threatened to behead him
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleZev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
An economics professor at City University of London tells British media that masked demonstrators stormed his classroom yesterday, threatening to behead him and shouting accusations that he is a “war criminal” and a “Nazi.”
“They came right up to me and screamed in my face,” Michael Ben-Gad tells Sky News. “One of them made a threat about having my head chopped off.”
Masked students wearing keffiyehs threatened to behead an Israeli professor during his lecture at City University of London.
Professor Michael Ben-Gad said he has repeatedly faced harassment from Free Palestine students at the university but declared, “No one is going to… pic.twitter.com/wxXkTCYIws
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) October 23, 2025
Ben-Gad, who served in the IDF in the 1980s and has ties to Israeli universities, said he has been targeted by an anti-Israel group called City Action for Palestine, which is demanding his dismissal.
The university has said it will not tolerate the harassment of its staff and students, and that Ben-Gad has the full support of the university and its senior management team.
Ben-Gad has also refused to back down. “I’m insisting on carrying on my duties. The students have a right to expect nothing less from me,” he tells Sky News.
Antisemitism has soared in the UK since the start of the conflict. More than 1,500 antisemitic incidents were recorded across the country in the first half of 2025, the second-highest total ever, the Community Security Trust, which provides security to Jewish organizations across the country, said earlier this year.
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