Jewish students at Cambridge University in England have expressed shock and dismay at a motion to debate proposed by the school’s Student Union calling for a “mass uprising” in Israel with consequences similar to the Hamas attacks on October 7.

A post with the announcement was put up on the social media website called X by the Cambridge University Union of Jewish Students. “For the Cambridge Students’ Union to consider debating a motion calling for a ‘mass uprising’ once again is an absolute disgrace,” the group said.

“Jewish students in Cambridge,” it said, “deserve to learn in a safe and inclusive environment, without the murders of their relatives and friends being debated.” The group said it had written to the Cambridge Student Union to urge them not to debate the motion, but had not received a reply.

In 1933, as the rise of the Nazis in Germany was under way, the student union at Oxford University in Britain debated whether a motion that said: “This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country.” The measure — passed by 275 votes to 153 against it — came to be known as the Oxford Pledge and tarnished the university’s reputation for decades.