Masked pro-Palestine protesters wearing keffiyehs took over the office of Steven Prawer, a Jewish professor at the University of Melbourne (UMelb), Australia, on Wednesday, in an alleged protest over his academic connection to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The group, University of Melbourne for Palestine, posted multiple pictures and videos to their Instagram in which they can be seen invading the professor’s office and staging a sit-in. They can also be seen chanting and covering the door of his office in pro-Palestine stickers and signs.
One sticker said “antisemitism is a crime, anti-Zionism is a duty,” and the two signs read “Steven Prawer, your work will break your soul before it breaks the resistance” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
The group said that they discovered pro-Israel memorabilia in Prawer’s office, including a picture of a sticker for Tel Aviv University with the world Shalom [peace] on it.
In another video, a woman wearing a keffiyeh and a mask interrogates Prawer as he talks to the police outside the office. When he attempts to walk away, the woman follows him and continues to ask questions about Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
Prawer, an engineering professor and head of the UMelb Materials Institute, is the academic lead of the Jerusalem-Melbourne Joint PhD program.
This, according to the protesters, was the reason for their actions. In a poster stuck on the wall of Prawer’s office, the group wrote, “Prawer spearheads a number of research projects in collaboration with Israeli research institutes, academics, and universities, such as a recent project with the Israeli Center of Advanced Diamond Technology.”
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The protest was allegedly part of the group’s efforts to make the University cut its academic ties with Israeli universities, as seen in another poster.
“It is imperative that the University of Melbourne acknowledge and utilize its privilege as a settler entity to support colonized peoples and end their complicity in the Israeli colonial project and ongoing genocide of Palestinians,” the group stated.
They demanded that UMelb implement a scholarship for Palestinian students.
The university called the police on the protesters – who subsequently asked for more people to join them to increase their numbers – and is still trying to identify the students as they were masked.
The university’s Vice Chancellor, Duncan Maskell, wrote a letter to faculty and students following the incident, calling it an “attempt to harass and intimidate.”
“I am shocked and appalled,” he wrote. “This type of behavior is completely and utterly unacceptable.”
“Intentional acts of intimidation, violence, vilification, or antisemitism will not be tolerated.”
Maskell added that if the protesters were identified as UMelb students or staff, the university would not hesitate to initiate disciplinary procedures.
Australian antisemitism
Shadow Education Minister Sarah Henderson went on Melbourne’s Radio 3AQ to speak about the incident with host Jacqui Felgate.
Henderson referred to Prof. Prawer as a “very distinguished academic” who was “essentially attacked” by a group of protesters who invaded his office.
“Not physically attacked but intimidated, threatened, and traumatized,” she added.
“I am pleased the university called the police and the students did leave, but they also yelled out some shocking antisemitic slogans, accused him of being a war criminal and this is just untenable.”
Felgate added that the protesters also shouted: “Zionists are genocidal maniacs,” and that in a week where Australia’s Jewish community was commemorating the “horrific attack” of October 7, the timing of this incident was “absolutely shocking.”
“They clearly only want to traumatize and inflict as much suffering on Jewish academics and Jewish students [as they can],” said Henderson.
She added that the incident served as further evidence that the Albanese government should agree to a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities.
“It makes me feel devastated that we are at a place now in our society where we have got people coming into someone’s workplace and harassing them because they are Jewish.”
Henderson also said this was not the first time Prof. Prawer had experienced an incident; he previously gave evidence at an inquiry saying he had once been evacuated from his office because a group of students had identified him personally and invaded it.
Subsequently, he needed to have a security guard outside his office for three days.
“Many Australian Jews are traumatized,” Henderson concluded. “The level of antisemitism is absolutely horrific.”