University College London has issued an “unequivocal apology” following a lecture hosted by the institution’s Justice in Palestine Society which uncritically referred to a 19th century antisemitic blood libel. The lecture on the history of Zionism, given by a “former fixed-term researcher” at UCL, Dr Samar Maqusi — whose profile on the website has since been removed — mentioned the 1840 Damascus Affair, when Jews were accused without evidence of murdering a priest to make bread with his blood.

The 1840 Damascus blood libel is generally remembered as an infamous antisemitic lie which led to a prolonged outburst of antisemitism, not just in the Middle East but across Europe. The seven Jews arrested for this supposed crime of killing a Capuchin priest named Thomas were all tortured until they confessed, two of them so savagely that they perished.

In the lecture, Maqusi mentioned that “part of the holy ceremony is that drops of blood from someone who’s not Jewish […] has to be mixed in that bread”. “He was found murdered, and a group of Jews who lived in Syria admitted to kidnapping him and murdering him to get the drops of blood for making the holy bread.”

While Maqusi did caveat the story by saying “do investigate, draw your own narrative”, she failed to mention that the Jews who admitted to the crime did so after being tortured. She also failed to mention that 63 Jewish children were taken from their parents in an effort to make them reveal where the “blood” was being stored. She said nothing to suggest that perhaps the Jews’ confessions might have been unreliable or a result of coercion.

According to Maqusi, “the Jews pretty much controlled the [world’s] financialisation [sic] structure”. In her view, “a lot of the banks, a lot of the financial infrastructure, was owned by a lot of Jewish families”. It was this, she went on, that persuaded Napoleon Bonaparte to “erect the Jewish kingdom in Palestine under French patronage”. He was helped by “a man called Sir Moses Montefiore”, she said. “He’s a British financier and banker, activist and philanthropist, and he was the Sheriff of London, so we can also start making connections between, um, Britain, and the wealthy Jewish leaders of Britain, who now enters our story.” Critics have noted that Napoleon did not establish the Jewish state, which did not come into existence until 1948, 127 years after his death.

A Jewish UCL student who attended the lecture, Mark Ben Mikhelson, recorded it and shared it with StandWithUs, an educational organisation that tries to raise awareness of antisemitism. Mikhelson said he was shaken by the experience. “The acceptance by my fellow students of antisemitic blood libels and conspiracy theories was a chilling moment,” he said. “These lies have led to the killing of so many Jews throughout history and yet it is seen as perfectly normal discourse at UCL.”

The lecture comes amid rising concerns across the UK about increasing antisemitism on university campuses. Last month, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said there had been an “unacceptable increase in antisemitism” at universities and said the Labour government was funding training to help staff and students at universities “tackle this poison”. Also last month, the free speech director at the watchdog for higher education in England, Arif Ahmed, said the Office for Students (OfS) was prepared to punish universities that failed to keep Jewish faculty and students safe. “Universities and colleges also have a duty to take steps to protect students from harassment and that includes antisemitic harassment,” he said.

UCL has been on the end of repeated allegations of unchecked antisemitism on campus. A month after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, more than 500 alumni wrote to its Provost to demand action against a “torrent of antisemitism” which had seen student societies glorify the terrorist killings and UCL’s branch of the University and College Union pass a motion calling for “intifada until victory” and a “mass uprising”. Jewish students, they said, were being harassed and their safety was at risk. In March 2025, Dr Tarek Younis of Middlesex University delivered a lecture at UCL claiming that terrorism was a term “deployed by Israel” to discriminate against Muslims and “marginalise Palestinian resistance”.

A senior official source at the Community Security Trust, the organisation that protects Jewish communities, told UnHerd that Maqusi’s lecture represented “the crossing of a Rubicon”. Flagrant antisemitism — as opposed to militant anti-Zionism — is becoming acceptable, the source said.

Others appear to agree. StandWithUs executive director Isaac Zarfati said it was “indefensible” that UCL could provide a platform for “long debunked racist conspiracy theories” and it should be ashamed for airing a blood libel that has “driven violent pogroms against Jews around the world”. Shadow Education Minister Saqib Bhatti said UCL must investigate “immediately”, saying “life has become intolerable for Jewish students across the UK due to the surge in antisemitism”.

“Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our university,” the UCL President and Provost, Dr Michael Spence, told UnHerd. “We have reported this incident to the police and have banned [the researcher] from campus. We have 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.”

“Freedom of speech and academic freedom are fundamental to university life, but they can never be misused as a shield for hatred,” he said.

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David Rose is UnHerd‘s Investigations Editor.

DavidRoseUK

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