Bristol University Student Officer Tells Jewish Peer to ‘Be Like Israel and Cease to Exist’
by Algemeiner Staff
A student union officer at Bristol University in England has been placed under investigation after telling a Jewish student that he should “be like Israel and cease to exist.”
Omar Chowdhury, the newly-elected black and ethnic minorities officer at the university’s Students’ Union, also told Izzy Posen to, “f*** off,” in the social media exchange, adding, “your comments are like Israeli settlements: always popping up where they are not wanted.”
The comments appeared on the Facebook page Bristruths, which allows students to anonymously post messages. While they have since been deleted, they were archived in screenshots by the Metro newspaper.
In a separate post shared on Bristruths on Wednesday, an anonymous Jewish student said the incident “personally makes me so uncomfortable.”
“If they don’t kick [Chowdhury] off of the [Students’ Union] committee it is such a double standard,” the student added. “Jewish people are repeatedly swept under the rug, people are continually allowed to get away with this stuff, we need to set a precedent. This is clearly someone who shouldn’t be representing Bristol students. They are being both anti-zionist and anti-Semitic.”
The Students’ Union equality, liberation, and access officer Sally Patterson responded to the comment on Thursday, saying the union had “spoken to both students involved.”
“We are investigating the case under the SU Code of Conduct (our disciplinary procedure),” she added. “Bristol SU takes accusations of antisemitism extremely seriously and will investigate fully and confirm the outcomes with both the students involved.”