Radical Palestine activists disrupted a talk from Peter Thiel and even “trapped” the American tech entrepreneur inside of the Cambridge Union on Wednesday, accusing him of facilitating “genocide” by doing business with the Israeli military.
Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, which supplies technology to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), saw his talk at the debating and free speech society disrupted as three pro-Palestinian activists stood up and delivered a diatribe accusing him of being complicit in genocide in Gaza. While the disruptors were removed from the hall of the Cambridge Union, the event was further thrown into disarray as activists blocked the entrance to the building, preventing Thiel from leaving the building.
“Peter Thiel trapped inside Cambridge Union. Protesters not letting him leave,” Mail on Sunday journalist Sabrina Miller reported on social media while sharing footage of protesters waving Palestinian flags gathered outside of the entrance.
The German-born American tech billionaire’s cars were also prevented from leaving the Cambridge Union by protesters for over an hour, Cambridge University’s student paper Varsity reports.
CAMBRIDGE, CAMBRIDGESHIRE – MAY 08: A protestor inside The Cambridge Union as Peter Thiel speaks at The Cambridge Union on May 08, 2024 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. (Photo by Nordin Catic/Getty Images for The Cambridge Union)
In a statement, the leftist group Youth Demand, which claimed responsibility for the incident, said: “History will not be kind to those who aided and abetted the crimes of the Israeli state. Palantir is proud to assist Israel in bombing hospitals, where the bodies of hundreds of Palestinian patients have been found in mass graves with hands-bound and medical tubes still attached to them.”
“Instead of platforming those profiting from genocide, universities should be cutting ties with the Israeli death machine and calling on the UK government to demand an immediate two-way arms embargo.”
Thiel, who was a prominent financial backer of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election in the United States, reportedly taunted the leftist agitators as he finally left the building, laughing at them while filming from his phone, according to The Telegraph.
Defending the actions of the students, Paul Seagrove, the Communications Manager at the Cambridge Union Society, told Business Insider on Thursday: “Since our founding in 1815, the Cambridge Union Society’s foremost principle is that of freedom of speech and the open exchange of ideas.
“In this spirit, we both support the right to peaceful protest alongside the right for our speakers and members to voice their opinion. Last night’s event demonstrated this long-standing tradition of the society.”
The incident comes as students at Cambridge and Oxford set up tent encampments on the grounds of prestigious English universities to protest against Israel, following the lead of activists at Colombia and Harvard in the United States and French activists at the Sorbonne and Sciences Po universities.
At Cambridge, the student group leading the protest accused the university of supporting “Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza”.
Students have demanded that Cambridge disclose any financial or professional ties with “complicit” organisations, divest funds from those who support Israel and “reinvest” in “Palestinian students, academics, and scholars”. They went on to demand that Cambridge commits to becoming a “sanctuary” for “students at risk”.
CAMBRIDGE, CAMBRIDGESHIRE – MAY 08: A protestor inside The Cambridge Union as Peter Thiel speaks at The Cambridge Union on May 08, 2024 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. (Photo by Nordin Catic/Getty Images for The Cambridge Union)
Meanwhile, on Wednesday the Jewish Chronicle newspaper in Britain revealed that delegates at a National Union of Students (NUS) conference in Blackpool had voted to expel the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) — the largest Jewish student union in the country — over its support for Israel.
According to the paper, the move came as a swastika was discovered in a toilet stall at the conference and amid students claiming that the Jewish state was built on “racist ideology” and “ethnic cleansing”. Students also called for an end to the “colonial project” and to “dismantle the Israeli state”.
The vote was non-binding and the NUS ultimately issued an apology, describing the vote to expel the Union of Jewish Students as being “outside of our guidelines and rules”.
However, former universities minister, Conservative MP Robert Halfon said: “The NUS said they have changed, but it is same old, same old. The question is whether or not NUS is institutionally antisemitic. It is up to them to prove otherwise. The treatment of UJS will be a seminal example.”