UK university bans lecturer who taught students antisemitic blood libel

University College London, a prominent UK university, launches an investigation and bans a researcher who shared an antisemitic blood libel with students.

The researcher, Dr. Samar Maqusi, shared the blood libel with the campus branch of Students for Justice in Palestine.

The blood libel is a medieval anti-Jewish myth that falsely says Jews murder non-Jews to bake their blood into Passover matzah. The libel is one of the most notorious antisemitic falsehoods and has caused repeated violence to Jews in Europe and elsewhere.

Maqusi’s lesson centered on the Damascus Affair, an incident in Syria in 1840 during which a monk disappeared and the Jewish community was falsely accused of murdering him to use his blood for Passover. Eight leading members of the Jewish community were tortured into confessing.

Maqusi said the monk had disappeared during a “Jewish feast.”

“During this feast, they make these special pancakes, or bread, and part of the holy ceremony is that drops of blood from someone who’s not Jewish, which the term is ‘gentile,’ has to be mixed in that bread,” Maqusi said, according to an audio recording shared by the advocacy group StandWithUs.

“The story is that a certain investigation was undergoing to find out where Father Thomas is. He was found murdered and a group of Jews who lived in Syria said that, admitted to kidnapping him and murdering him to get drops of blood for making the holy bread,” she said.

????Antisemitism at UCL Event With University Research Fellow ????

A StandWithUs UK student shared this recording with us, exposing awful comments made by a UCL academic during a lecture at University College London.

During a lecture titled “The Birth of Zionism”, delivered by Dr… pic.twitter.com/0RF9Ooz3d6

— StandWithUsUK (@StandWithUsUK) November 13, 2025

The campus branch of Students for Justice in Palestine had advertised the Tuesday event as part of a lecture series called “Palestine: From existence to resistance.” Maqusi’s talk was called “The Birth of Zionism.”

The advertisement for the event said Maqusi was a researcher at the university and a former employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for the Palestinians.

The university president and provost, Dr. Michael Spence, says: “I am utterly appalled by these heinous antisemitic comments.”
“Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our university, and I want to express my unequivocal apology to all Jewish students, staff, alumni, and the wider community that these words were uttered at UCL,” Spence says in a statement to The Times of Israel.

Spence says the researcher is not a current university staffer, that the university reported the incident to police, and that the lecturer is banned from campus.

The university has launched a “full investigation into how this happened and have banned the student group which hosted it from holding any further events on campus pending the outcome of this.”

“Regrettably, like many UK universities, we continue to confront incidents of antisemitism and are committing to banishing this from our campus,” Spence says, adding that the university has initiated disciplinary proceedings against some students for antisemitism and reported incidents to police “where appropriate.”

“Freedom of speech and academic freedom are fundamental to university life, but they can never be misused as a shield for hatred. UCL remains steadfast in our commitment to ensure our campus is a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for everyone,” Spence says.