The Evening Standard reports: “An “expedited” UK visas scheme is being put in place for students coming to Britain from Gaza, the Home Secretary has confirmed.”
There is a great series on YouTube by ReasonTV which starts with the catchphrase: “It sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions! What could possibly go wrong?” The series examines great “unintended consequences of history. At some point in the future, Yvette Coopper’s hair-brain scheme is sure to fit the bill.
What could possibly go wrong with bringing in students from Gaza to study in the UK, along with their immediate families? Let’s think about it for a few minutes and consider the following:
(1) We’re in the middle of a national crisis over migration, resources, university places and housing. This is just going to make the pressure points on these issues even more acute. It will fuel even more resentment as migrants appear to jump the queue and access premium services. Funnily enough, even in the current climate, I think this is the least of our worries.
(2) Gaza’s schools are not like our schools. We have covered the issue of Farfour the Inifada Mouse, on this blog before. From a young age, the children of Gaza are taught in their schools to hate Jews and to wage Jihad. They are going to bring those beliefs and that indoctrination to the UK.
(3) Gaza’s universities are not like universities. It is not for nothing the main university in Gaza is called “The Islamic University of Gaza”, founded to develop Islamic cultural values. The second largest university is the Al-Asqa University, named after the mosque built on to of top of the Temple Mount, for obvious reasons. Like its schools, Gaza’s universities are controlled by Hamas, which overseas staff appointments and curricula. This whining article by a Gaza student is illuminating. Ironically, he notes that the top careers in Gaza are “doctor or engineer”. Gosh. I wonder why!
(4) Gaza’s parents are not like our parents. British parents might say watching their child graduate with a degree is their proudest moment. In Gaza, martyrdom seems to top that as the highest achievement. Just a reminder, these parents are part of Coopers’s visa package. by the way, is it normal for someone granted a student visa to be allowed to bring their whole family?
(5) Gazans are not Ukrainians. Yes, we have had special refugee schemes for Ukrainians. But unlike Gaza which is hostile to our culture and way of life, Ukraine is an ally and shares a similar culture to our own. Ukrainians have shown themselves to be hard workers and achievers and have not impinged on our politics to the extent that we now have with identitarian politicians in our parliament obsessed with Gaza.
So these are the problems. Here are some predictions:
(1) They will be a fresh injection of Islamist.Jihadi politics into the UK, leading to even more antisemitism that the alarming current level.
(2) They will be adopted and platformed by the Palestinian Solidarity mob both on and off campus, even while they are supposedly studying for degrees in engineering and medicine. And what will their accompanying family keep themselves busy with? My guess is anti-Israel and ant-Western politics. Will they instead embrace a quiet life and enjoy the fruits of our secular liberal democracy? I gravely doubt, though I’d be delighted to be proven wrong.
(3) They will energize pro-Palestinian and (de facto) pro-Hamas politics on our campuses. They will be asked to give interviews and talks and become to go-to people for campus activists looking for a “moral authority” to lead marches and demonstrations, and so on. Which leads to the next point…
(4) Campuses will become even more hostile places for Jewish students.
The Home Secretary has confirmed that those eligible for these “fully funded” scholarships will be subject to “biometric tests”, but since this is deemed “difficult” in Gaza, more than 70 Labour MPs have called for this safeguarding to be waived for Palestinians. “What could possibly go wrong?” as I quipped at the beginning.
And with that question ringing in our ears, I’ll state the takeaway from this: Students whose education so far has been focussed on hatred of Jews are about to be airdropped onto British university campuses where there is already a hostile climate facing Jewish students.
It is also based on a staggering naiveté. Do we really believe that – having tasted the benefits of living in Britain – many of these newly minted (at the British taxpayer’s expense) doctors and engineers will want to return to to Gaza to help rebuild it after the destruction that followed Hamas’s failed invasion of Israel on October 7th 2023? No, they are likely to elect to stay here, and we know two things from experience: firstly, many will not be grateful to this county for the opportunities we afforded them and will involve themselves in extremist politics or crime, and secondly, when that inevitably happens, the courts here will prevent us from sending them home.
It’s all very depressing, and another example of this Labour government putting the needs and interests of outsiders ahead of those of the British people.
