A high-profile public claim of widespread anti-Jewish persecution made by a pro-Israel student at one of London’s most prestigious universities is facing significant scrutiny, after an independent investigation found evidence of altered quotes, misleading framing, and longstanding ties to extreme pro-Israel advocacy groups.
Tali Smus, a self-described “British Zioness” and English literature student at King’s College London (KCL), published a widely circulated op-ed in *The Telegraph* in July 2026 under the headline “As a Jewish student at King’s College, I’m being persecuted for my beliefs.” In the piece, Smus alleged that she was targeted in a 100-to-1 group attack by fellow students in a September 2024 Instagram group chat, leaving her in tears and targeted for anti-Jewish abuse. She concluded her op-ed by stating, “I am a Jewish student at King’s College London, and I refuse to remain a statistic. The anti-Jewish hatred I faced will not remain a statistic.”
Smus’s op-ed landed at a charged political moment: it came just days after an Al Jazeera investigation exposed KCL’s harsh crackdown on pro-Palestine student organizers, and coincided with an ongoing UK government review of antisemitism in British secondary and higher education. But an exclusive review of the full group chat log obtained by *Middle East Eye* (MEE) reveals multiple discrepancies between the quotes Smus published in *The Telegraph* and the actual messages sent by students.
For example, Smus claimed a student wrote, “If she interrupts the… lecture again tomorrow… she should be thrown out,” framing the line as a targeted threat. The original message reads, “If she interrupts the writing London lecture again tomorrow I swear to god she should be thrown out” — a comment aligned with KCL’s official policy of removing disruptive students from teaching spaces, issued in the context of Smus repeatedly disrupting class. Smus also alleged a second student wrote, “As a group we should just band together and carry her out at that point,” but she has provided no evidence this message was ever sent, and did not respond to requests to verify the claim.
In another instance, Smus altered the line “that bitch has gotten down” — a description referencing her unfurling of an Israeli flag at a pro-Palestine campus protest — to read “bitch get down,” framing it as a direct physical threat. The chat log also shows only roughly 20 students expressed disagreement with Smus’s views, not the “almost 100 against one” she claimed, and that at least one student spoke out in her defense, criticizing harassing language in the chat. Smus has remained active in the group chat, continuing to send messages long after the 2024 exchange.
Beyond the altered quotes, MEE’s investigation uncovered Smus’s deep ties to a network of high-profile right-wing pro-Israel groups with a documented history of targeting and smearing Palestinian activists and their supporters. Smus appeared on the UK’s right-wing GB News as the Emerson Fellow for Stand With Us, a pro-Israel organization that *The Guardian* has confirmed works closely with Israel’s foreign ministry, including to oppose pro-Palestinian boycott movements. She has also held a fellowship and produced content for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), which describes its campus fellows as “leaders… proactively spreading the truth about Israel” and connects them to mainstream media outlets. Smus additionally serves as president of KCL’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel, an organization partially funded by the Adelson family — the billionaire backers who successfully lobbied former U.S. President Donald Trump to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Smus’s public resume lists further ties to UK conservative circles: she previously worked as a research assistant at the Henry Jackson Society, a right-wing UK think tank whose senior associate Andrew Fox has amplified her antisemitism claims, and currently works as a policy research intern for Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp, whom she met at the UK’s 2024 March Against Antisemitism. In a 2025 blog for the *Times of Israel*, she publicly labeled popular LBC commentator James O’Brien an “antisemitic commentator.”
The investigation also revealed new details about an event Smus criticized in her op-ed: a 7 October 2024 pro-Palestine walkout and vigil held on KCL’s campus to commemorate two KCL alumni, Dr Maisara Alrayyes and Dr Adnan al-Bursh, who were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. Smus described the event as an offensive celebration of Hamas’s 2024 attack, omitting that she herself joined a counter-protest holding a large Israeli flag at the event.
Multiple KCL community members have pushed back on Smus’s framing of the conflict as targeting her Jewish identity, arguing instead that pushback against Smus centers on her vocal support for Israeli military actions in Gaza, not her religion. One anonymous KCL academic told MEE: “She’s scared to attend classes but feels safe to attend demonstrations that should be hostile to her, in order to make Instagram content. Other students don’t like her. That’s about as far as it goes.”
One student who participated in the 2024 group chat acknowledged that some language used was harsh, noting the charged context of the ongoing crisis in Gaza. “I regret some of the wording I used – I was in my first year of university and encountering someone who unapologetically supports Israel’s atrocious actions in Gaza hit a nerve with me and many others,” the student said.
As of publication, neither Smus nor *The Telegraph* has responded to multiple requests for comment from MEE on the allegations of altered quotes and misleading framing.