They have been told they must support the Thawabit
Delegates at a National Union of Students (NUS) conference voted in a breakout meeting to stop recognising their Jewish members’ main representative body because of its support for Israel, the JC can reveal.
The non-binding vote against the continued affiliation of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) was carried overwhelmingly at the NUS conference in Blackpool last month during a session that began with calls to “dismantle” the Jewish state as a “racist project of colonialism”.
So in other words shun the Jews. We’ve been here before, chums.
At the Oxford protest camp, participants have been asked to agree that as a “colonised” people, Palestinians have the “right to resist against occupation”.
They have also been told they must support the Thawabit, a set of demands issued by the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the 1970s that would lead to the end of the Jewish state, including a right of return for six million Palestinian refugees and their descendants. One Jewish student was reportedly refused entry to the camp when he declined.
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Unreported at the time, the move to expel the UJS took place at an NUS conference session on Palestine. It began with an invasion of the stage by a group of students claiming the only way to bring peace was to “dismantle the Israeli state” founded on “ethnic cleansing”, and that Zionism was a “racist ideology” and a “colonial project”.
One of the conference organisers then asked delegates whether the UJS should continue to be the “representative for Jewish students”.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Jewish student who was present told the JC: “The session had an incredibly hostile atmosphere, especially when delegates began to vilify the UJS. The proposal to disaffiliate from it was backed by a vast show of hands in support, which in a room of non-Jewish students felt isolating and wrong. Students with no skin in the game had decided that their place was to speak on matters impacting Jewish students.”
The skin in this particular game is all too literal.
Somewhat related: Abigail Shrier had a decent blog post on the campus protests and free speech recently:
The Campus ‘Free Speech’ Shell Game
Where’s Elmer Fudd when you need him?
I could care more if it wasn’t the NUS, the inventor of the “no platform” policy. I pretty sure the majority of the UK’s mindlessly censorious Blockleiters learnt their craft in the NUS.
They may support Israel, but they aren’t Israel itself. They are the student body representing the jewish students at the student union, giving them a voice. You don’t need to agree with their voice to see the distinction here.
And what the fuck is the student union doing at this meeting anyway? Voting to dismantle a nation?? The overweening pride of these fools beggars belief. You’re a student union in England, your vote does absolutely nothing in the wider world. Stop shining up your credentials and get on with something that might actually achieve something. Or has the student union been so successful in the lead up to this that there are no issues remaining for them to address?
And forced speech or denial of entry. My god, this may be the strongest evidence yet for the horseshoe theory of politics.
However, it was England at the height of its colonial powers that decreed Jews could be given Palestine as a homeland. (Balfour Declaration, 1917). This was a mere moment after Palestine had supposedly been liberated from the depredations of the Ottoman Empire.
It was also England, along with Palestinian Jews, France, the USA, and the USSR that convinced the United Nations to establish a Jewish nation in Palestine. Notice the lack of consultation with Arab Palestinians, the overwhelming majority of the people about to be dispossessed. Nor was there a Palestinian seat at the UN.
I do not support anything that tries to remove any student from education or full participation in student life, but I do understand how anger over 75 years of ethnic cleansing in Palestine can sometimes lead people to irrational actions. I am furious that my own country’s government is still selling arms to Israel, even though we know beyond doubt that they are being used almost exclusively on civilians. It breaks my heart to see the destruction of civil infrastructure such as schools and hospitals because they are soft targets. And it beggars belief that the USA should threaten Holland should any Israeli be brought there for crimes against humanity.
Israel should never have been imposed on the Palestinians, but you can’t put smoke back into a fused circuit board. The world must now live with the poor decisions from 100 years ago. There is now far too much enmity on either side for the mythological “two state solution” to evolve. The sole solution I can see is for Israel to be forced back to its 1948 borders, for a “Marshall Plan” style rebuilding of Palestine (to be funded by USA, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran). Israel must be assured that any attempt to invade another nation will bring swift retribution.
You may say I’m a dreamer …
Holms, that is so true – they are supposed to represent Israel. I was in a model UN in college; we represented South Africa. This was during the apartheid years, and I was on the committee dealing with Namibia. I didn’t agree with apartheid; I didn’t agree with them claiming Namibia. While I was representing them, you wouldn’t guess that. That’s what the whole thing is about!