Too Little Too Late

Recently, King’s College London announced the Dr. Maisara Al-Rayyes Scholarship for postgraduate students from Palestine to pursue a master's degree in a health science subject, which will be introduced in the next academic year. Although this marginal step forward must be recognised as such, we, as the students of King’s London, must emphasise the painstaking efforts required to force the University to recognise the basic humanity of one of its alumni. Dr Al-Rayyes was killed over 11 months ago, and the University’s reluctance to acknowledge that he was murdered by Israel, even as his body still lies under the rubble, is demoralising. 

It was not until after much pressure from the student movement, whose initial demand was a scholarship in the name of Dr Al-Rayyes and who were investigated for their endeavours, and the Universities and College Union (UCU) that the University capitulated to our request of basic human compassion. Too little has been done far too late. Another alumnus of this institution, King’s Hospital Fellow Dr. Adnan Al Bursh was tortured and murdered by Israeli Occupation Forces, yet management has remained silent unwilling to confront the reality that recognition of Dr. Al Bursh’s killing is a tacit admission that it is financing a genocide in which its students are victims.

KCL Stands 4 Justice will not rest until King’s College London publicly apologises for their inaction and institutes a fellowship programme in Dr. Bursh’s name. We implore the King’s community and the public at large to not fall for blatant attempts by the University to virtue-signal and feign any semblance of action and sympathy for Palestinian lives when it actively stains its hands in the blood of innocent civilians every day it maintains investments in genocide profiteers and refuses to recognise the conditions in Gaza for what they are: the single-most abhorrent systematic extermination campaign carried out by a state in the 21st century.