The convener of the Israel-Palestine discussion group has told The Cheese Grater the initiative is independent of the Provost despite receiving funding from his office.
In an exclusive interview, the founder and convenor of the Israel-Palestine Initiative (IPI) Dr Julie Norman said she hopes pro-Palestine groups at UCL know “the door is open” and that the IPI was not intended to supplant or “pacify” students after a coalition of activists denounced the project as “normalising” genocide.
The IPI, a staff-led discussion project established by Norman last November, sought to offer a space on campus to “discuss, understand, and think critically” about Israel and Palestine through “diverse learning events and nuanced conversations”.
Some activists have criticised the project for its characterisation of the events in Palestine as a “conflict”, which they say glosses over “Israel’s past and present as a settler colonial state engaged in apartheid, illegal occupation, and genocide”.
But Norman said: “I hope that students who were involved in activism would engage in the space as well and not see it as an ‘either-or’, but I also understood if they didn’t choose to engage.
“I very much respected their activism and supported their right to protest and their right to free expression.”
She said the IPI is intended as “another type of space on campus that didn’t seem to exist and that a lot of students seem to want.” This is despite several ‘teach-ins’ being held by pro-Palestine activists at UCL such as Action for Palestine (AFP) and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement since last October.
Norman, who lectures in politics and international relations, also came under fire for her close links with the University after it was revealed that she had been directly involved with the Provost’s ‘Disagreeing Well’ campaign.
Speaking to The Cheese Grater, Norman confirmed the IPI had received “a couple thousand pounds” in funding from the Provost via Disagreeing Well but insisted on the project’s independence.
“I could not and would not accept funding if [there] was going to be any kind of agenda setting […] from the Provost,” she said.
“They have respected the non-interference lines that I drew.”
She said she considered the Disagreeing Well campaign to be “very separate” from her own and that the link to the Provost did not “strike [her] as a point of concern.”
Pressed on the lack of transparency around the IPI’s ties with the Provost’s office, Norman said: “I acknowledge the pain that a lot of students had this last year, perhaps still have, from the trauma of the conflict, [as well as from] how things played out here at UCL.
“Now I am aware of how triggering that was to students to learn that, but we were never trying to hide the ball.”
UCL Provost Michael Spence has long faced criticism for his initial refusal to cut ties with companies deemed complicit in war crimes.
Activists allege the University is suppressing pro-Palestinian activism after it successfully sought a court order to evict the Main Quad encampment last July.
‘Sorry I wasn’t more transparent’
Confusion surrounding the IPI’s finances has attracted criticism from AFP activists, who alleged the project funded an Israeli speaker but asked student groups to chip in for a Palestinian speaker.
Norman clarified that this was never the case and added the messages sent to AFP were not meant to imply the IPI were only paying for the Israeli peace activist.
She said that additional funding was required to invite Hamze Awawde, the Palestinian activist, to arrange his travel to the UK, whereas the Israeli speaker lived in London.
IPI reached out to multiple student groups, including AFP, to try and raise the funds not covered by UCL. The Cheese Grater understands the IPI received donations from at least two other societies.
Norman said: “It was never meant to force the hand or to pretend to be some kind of event that it wasn’t. There was no intended deception there.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t come across as more transparent.”
‘Not normalisation’
Norman also rejected claims by AFP activists that the IPI was “normalising” genocide.
She insisted that every speaker invited by the IPI believed in Palestinian self-determination and that the project has not platformed anyone who would try to “paper over” the events happening in the region.
She said: “I feel that there are many different ways to be engaged on this issue. I don’t see what we were doing as ‘normalisation’ […] but I also respect that for some people’s activism, they might choose not to engage in this.”
“This is not normalising the situation as much as trying to unpack and understand it.”
Norman says events at the IPI intend to grapple with questions like what genocide is, “when is dialogue productive, [and] when is it counterproductive?”
Activists at AFP say normalisation is the “presentation of Israel as a normal state with whom dialogue and normal relations are possible”, whether by hiding or overlooking “Israel’s past and present as a settler colonial state engaged in apartheid, illegal occupation, and genocide.”
They argue that normalisation includes events which present the events in Israel and Palestine as a “conflict”, suggesting that the two sides are equal in their grievances and both have “equally valid narratives”.
Provost adds fuel to fire
In particular, activists cited UCL Provost Michael Spence’s comments in a recent Sunday Times article as reason for their refusal to collaborate with the IPI.
In the article, the Provost says the IPI and similar initiatives like Disagreeing Well are “a far more likely route to coexistence and a reduction of human suffering than most of the campus protests we have seen.”
AFP claims that this rhetoric demonstrates how the University is trying to “undermine and replace student activism on campus with ‘dialogue’ which normalises Israeli colonialism, apartheid, and occupation”.
They say the IPI and Disagreeing Well amounts to normalisation and represents a “betrayal” of Palestinian national rights.
But Norman insists that the IPI is not in opposition to the student movement, adding she found the Provost’s article at the same time as everyone else.
She said: “I understand that students are doing what they think is right on this cause.
“I just hope that they see that there’s a lot more convergence between a lot of what we’re all trying to do.”
