UK university expels student who had picture of Jew with Palestinian flag on his mouth

A Nottingham Trent University (NTU) student has been “permanently excluded” for using as his profile picture a selfie with an Orthodox Jewish man sleeping on a train and placing a Palestinian flag over his mouth.

The South Asian British student uploaded the picture to his Tinder dating profile, which sparked outrage after it was screenshotted and shared on Twitter last month.

The university confirmed that the first-year student, known as Jonathan, has been expelled following a controversial social media post which caused several people to directly link NTU and highlight the issue, labelling it “sickening antisemitism” and accusing him of treating Jews “as if they’re animals in a zoo.”

An NTU spokesperson said: “We can confirm that a student has been permanently excluded from the university, relating to offensive content which circulated on social media in September.”

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“We launched an investigation the moment we were made aware of a screen grab which showed unacceptable behaviour from a student on their personal profile.”

“The student – who had not yet started his first year at the university – was immediately identified, interviewed and suspended, and a university disciplinary panel was convened to decide upon appropriate action. During our investigation we were informed that a Palestinian flag had been super-imposed over the mouth of a man in the image.”

“This behaviour was completely unacceptable and is not recognised as part of our university’s culture. We have a diverse, inclusive and global community of which we are proud, and we endeavour to create an atmosphere of mutual trust, harmony and respect.”

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“Any behaviour which deviates from this will not be tolerated at NTU.”

Before being permanently excluded, student news outlet Nottingham Tab reported Jonathan regretted posing the picture and denied being anti-Semitic: “It was indeed a terrible picture, absolutely insensitive and should not have been taken in the first place.”

“I should also mention the fact that I am in no way antisemitic or have any kind of prejudice towards Jews.”