The university president and provost, Dr. Michael Spence, said: “I am utterly appalled by these heinous antisemitic comments.”
“Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our university, and I want to express my unequivocal apology to all Jewish students, staff, alumni, and the wider community that these words were uttered at UCL,” Spence said in a statement shared with The Times of Israel.
Spence said the researcher was not a current university staffer, that the university reported the incident to police, and that the lecturer had been banned from campus, without naming Maqusi.
The university has launched a “full investigation into how this happened and have banned the student group which hosted it from holding any further events on campus pending the outcome of this,” he said.
“Regrettably, like many UK universities, we continue to confront incidents of antisemitism and are committing to banishing this from our campus,” Spence said, adding that the university has initiated disciplinary proceedings against some students for antisemitism and reported incidents to police “where appropriate.”
“Freedom of speech and academic freedom are fundamental to university life, but they can never be misused as a shield for hatred. UCL remains steadfast in our commitment to ensure our campus is a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for everyone,” Spence said.
Marqusi’s page on the university’s website appears to have been taken down. An archived version of the page said Maqusi was a PhD student at the university’s Bartlett School of Architecture, where she was investigating “spatial politics of the Palestine refugee camp,” and was a former employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for the Palestinians.
Maqusi delivered a lecture to the university’s Institute for Global Prosperity earlier this year, characterizing Israel as a “project of Zionist settler colonialism.”
The blood libel dates back more than 2,000 years. The myth took on a central role in the persecution of Jews in Europe with accusations against the Jewish community in Norwich, England, in 1144, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The false accusation spread through Europe, causing outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in medieval France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
The libel continued into the 20th century, causing pogroms in Eastern Europe before and after the Holocaust, and becoming a motif in Nazi propaganda.
The blood libel has appeared elsewhere, including in Syria, Iran and upstate New York.
Jewish students have reported widespread antisemitism at universities across the UK in recent years.