NUS exec votes to support BDS


June 4, 2015
Sarah Benton

The coverage of the NUS Executive decision has been very wide, much greater, for instance, than of TUC resolutions on boycott, presumably reflecting which body is more likely to provide the UK’s political leadership. Here is a selection of the comments / reports.

1) Guardian: Israel brands Palestinian-led boycott movement a ‘strategic threat’;
2) Telegraph: Netanyahu condemns UK students over pro-boycott vote, usual thorough report including Sheldon Adelson’s conference on combatting BDS;
3) Student Times: NUS Votes to support Israeli boycott;
4) RT: National Union of Students executive committee votes to boycott Israeli goods, this is the one for a brief summation of the story;
5) Jewish Chronicle: Fury as NUS leaders vote to boycott Israel, predictable report quoting predictable people;
6) The Linc: NUS National Executive support Israel boycott, from Lincoln university’s student newspaper;
7) Ynet: UK universities umbrella group rejects calls to join BDS campaign;
8- Yair Lapid calls on UK government to condemn NUS boycott of Israel, and he’s coming to Britain later this month;


Students’ boycott plea in Sainsbury’s Islington, 2013. The supermarket chain imports settlement products.

Israel brands Palestinian-led boycott movement a ‘strategic threat’

Netanyahu and Israeli government turn up heat on BDS over its calls for Israel to be boycotted for its occupation of Palestinian territories

By Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem, The Guardian
June 03, 2015

Israel and key international supporters have sharply ratcheted up their campaign against the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, with senior Israeli officials declaring it a strategic threat.

Using language the Israeli government usually reserves for the likes of Hamas or Iran’s nuclear programme, senior figures – including the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and a key backer in the US, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson – have turned on the movement, which is prominent on university campuses and among international trade unions.

The moves came as the UK’s National Union of Students (NUS) voted on Tuesday to formally ally itself with the aims of BDS. Following the vote, Hebrew media reported that Israeli MPs were due to hold a special session in the Knesset to discuss the issue.

The non-violent grassroots movement, founded with the support of dozens of Palestinian organisations, is modelled on South African anti-apartheid campaigns and calls for an end to the occupation, equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and a resolution for Palestinian refugees of 1948.

Israeli critics point to the call for a right to return and the opposition of some leaders of the movement to a two-state solution – which they describe as a mistake – as evidence that BDS is antisemitic.

After years in which Israeli officials and commentators have loftily dismissed the impact of BDS – which seeks to persuade businesses, artists, governments and academic institutions to boycott Israel over its long occupation of the Palestinian territories – Israel’s new rightwing government has in recent days singled out the movement for criticism.

The issue appears to have been given added impetus since Palestinian efforts to have Israel suspended from the scandal-ridden world football organisation Fifa failed on Friday.

Comments by senior Israeli politicians over the last week have been amplified in the Hebrew media by sympathetic commentary by columnists. Among those who have allied themselves with the latest efforts are the mass circulation Israeli paper Yedioth Ahoronoth – which earlier this week allied itself on its front page with “Fighting the boycott” – and its rightwing columnist Ben-Dror Yemeni, who has echoed the comments of officials.

“The success of BDS,” Yemini wrote earlier this week, “is particularly impressive because it is a movement that uses the language of rights, but deals in practice with denying Israel’s right to exist. The result is a major deception.”

The latest rhetoric has coincided with growing evidence of pro-Israeli activism over BDS, not least in the US. Last week, a new website emerged whose aim was to identify US college students active in the BDS movement with the explicit aim of identifying then to future possible employers. It was not clear who was behind the site.

This weekend, Adelson will reportedly convene a meeting of super wealthy pro-Israel donors for a summit in Las Vegas on countering the influence of BDS and similar movements on US campuses.

On Sunday, Netanyahu explicitly attempted to link boycott movements to historic “antisemitism”, echoing remarks that Netanyahu made in his keynote address to the US pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC last year, when he described BDS as being on the “wrong side of the moral divide” while predicting that the “movement will fail”.

The latest rhetoric was immediately condemned by Barghouti, who dismissed the recent moves as a “panic-driven, racist and patently propagandistic Israeli attack on the movement”.

He told the Guardian:

Placing a non-violent human rights movement that seeks freedom, justice and equality on par with the so-called Iranian ‘nuclear capacity’ as a ‘first-rate strategic threat’ – as Israeli president Reuven Rivlin announced a few days ago or as the new minister of strategic affairs and public security in the far-right Israeli government Gilad Erdan tweeted on his first day on the job – reflects Israel’s failure in hindering the fast growth of BDS.

It also betrays Israel’s inherent inability to face such popular, anti-racist, human rights-based and nonviolent challenges to its regime of oppression.

Israeli officials told the Guardian that the focus on BDS was not an acknowledgement of its success but rather the reaffirmation of a principal of “moral outrage” both over the recent move by the NUS and by efforts to have Israel suspended from Fifa.

That, however, has led to accusations from critics that Israel is deliberately conflating the BDS movement with separate Palestinian efforts to hold Israel accountable for the occupation.

Facing growing warnings of international isolation in the absence of a peace process with the Palestinians and amid continued settlement building in the occupied territories, the latest moves appear designed to conflate BDS with separate initiatives by Palestinian diplomats to internationalise support for the end to occupation and for the creation of a Palestinian state in global forums.

One Palestinian official familiar with efforts on the international stage said he believed the latest effort was aimed not only at BDS but at the wider Palestinian effort to promote its case in the international criminal Court, the UN and Fifa.

“They are trying to combine all the efforts to hold Israel accountable into creating a monster that is not there yet,” the official said. “If ask the Palestinian leadership, some love BDS as a movement, others hate it. I think what Netanyahu is trying to do is create an idea that even if you believe Palestinian moves in international forums are legitimate, they are undermined because BDS – in the Israelis argument – seeks to ’destroy state of Israel’.”


NUS_toni_pearce
NUS president Toni Pearce

Netanyahu condemns UK students over pro-boycott vote

Israeli prime minister hits out after National Union of Students allies itself with movement campaigning for embargo against Israel

By Robert Tait, Jerusalem, Daily Telegraph
June 03, 2015

Benjamin Netanyahu led a furious Israeli backlash against Britain’s leading student body on Wednesday after it voted to ally itself with a Palestinian group that campaigns for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel.

The Israeli prime minister accused the National Union of Students (NUS) of being “hostile to the truth” following a vote by its executive council to affiliate itself the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Tuesday’s vote – proposed by London’s School of Oriental and African Studies students’ union – came amid rising concern in Israel that pro-boycott movements are gathering momentum under the influence of a so-called “diplomatic tsunami” inspired by Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority, in his drive for statehood.

Mr Netanyahu, who warned this week that Israel was facing a “campaign of delegitimisation” meant to “blacken” its name, condemned the students before meeting Robert Nicholson, Canada’s foreign minister, in Jerusalem.

“A national student group in Britain voted to support a boycott of Israel,” the Israeli leader said, contrasting the NUS vote with the support he said Israel drew from Canada. “This is less than a year after they refused to support a boycott of Isil.

“They boycott Israel but they refuse to boycott Isil. That tells you everything you want to know about the BDS movement. They condemn Israel and do not condemn Isil; they condemn themselves.”

He was referring to the NUS executive’s rejection last year of a motion to condemn Isil on the grounds that it would be “Islamophobic”.


Malia Bouattia, NUS, said condemning ISIS has become a justification for ‘war and blatant Islamophobia’, 2014. She also said she ‘plans to put forward another motion in the next meeting to condemn ISIS that “will in no way pander to Western imperialistic intervention or the demonisation of Muslim peoples”’. Photo from NUS, Black Students.

Mr Netanyahu’s denunciation echoed criticism made earlier by the Israeli foreign ministry, which dismissed the NUS as a body known for “anti-Israeli opinions”.

“Instead of expressing hatred towards Israel, the British students should invest some time in history lessons and realise the distance between verbal hatred and prejudice to heinous crimes is not that big,” the ministry said.
The controversy came as the MPs in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, prepared on Wednesday for an emergency debate on growing international boycott calls.

The debate has been proposed by three different political parties, the centrist Kulanu party along with the centre-Left Zionist Union and the Left-wing Meretz party.

An election campaign poster with the image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lies among ballot papers
Fears of a boycott and international isolation have risen following last week’s unsuccessful Palestinian attempt to have Israel expelled from FIFA, the scandal-plagued international football governing body, for alleged racism and discrimination.

While the Palestinian motion was eventually withdrawn, Israeli commentators and officials have warned that it could presage further attempts at ostracism.

Israeli academics have pointed to evidence of a “latent” academic boycott, citing cases of foreign scholars declining invitations to attend conferences in Israel or ignoring requests to write reference letters for Israeli colleagues seeking promotion.

Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire American-Jewish casino owner who is one of Mr Netanyahu’s wealthiest backers, is reported to have organised a “secret” conference in Las Vegas in the coming days to discuss how to combat BDS influence on US university campuses.

The concern over boycott extends beyond Mr Netanyahu’s supporters. Yedioth Ahronoth, the country’s biggest-selling newspaper which is a known critic of the prime minister, this week launched a campaign aimed at highlighting and countering efforts to isolate Israel on the international stage.



NUS Votes to support Israeli boycott

By Student Times
June 04, 2015

The National Union of Students has passed a motion to boycott Israeli companies and to affiliate to the BDS Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement

Motion 518a, titled Solidarity with Palestine: Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions, was put forward by the School of Oriental and African Studies students union in London.

Originally a motion intended for the union’s national conference, the executive voted to “affiliate to the BDS movement”, “reaffirm NUS policy on boycotting companies which have been identified as being complicit in human rights abuses in Israel/Palestine”, and “call upon the UK government to stop arming Israel”.

BDS involves boycotting products, companies, and academics from Israel; getting universities to take their investments out of Israeli businesses; and encouraging the UK government to impose sanctions on the Israeli government – all as a method of forcing the Israeli government to stop perpetuating human rights abuses in disputed territories.

Student unions at Exeter, Keele, Brunel, Goldsmiths, Swansea, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Birkbeck, and Kingston have already passed their own motions in favour of the BDS campaign.

Students at almost all other universities also campaigning for their student unions to join the movement.

The NUS’ action was confirmed by 19 votes for to 14 against.

The Union of Jewish Students accused the NUS of “playing at politics”, adding: “This year, Jewish students collected over 2,000 signatures from more than ten campuses in support of a two state solution and against BDS. But, it seems that this loud voice is not enough. NUS NEC continues to ignore this critical mass and blindly dismiss Jewish students’ experiences.”

Speaking about the vote Israeli’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu called the NUS hypocrites after the motion was passed boycotting the country and calling on the UK government to stop arming Israel.

“They boycott Israel but they refuse to boycott ISIS,” Netanyahu said. “They condemn Israel and do not condemn ISIS; they condemn themselves. Israel has an exemplary democracy. We have academic freedom, press freedom, human rights. ISIS tramples human rights to the dust.”

Speaking about the vote Israeli’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu called the NUS hypocrites after the motion was passed boycotting the country and calling on the UK government to stop arming Israel.

“They boycott Israel but they refuse to boycott ISIS,” Netanyahu said. “They condemn Israel and do not condemn ISIS; they condemn themselves. Israel has an exemplary democracy. We have academic freedom, press freedom, human rights. ISIS tramples human rights to the dust.”



National Union of Students executive committee votes to boycott Israeli goods

By RT [state-funded Russia Today]
June 03, 2015

The National Union of Students (NUS) has passed a motion to boycott Israeli goods in solidarity with the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to exert economic pressure on Israel over its actions in Palestinian territory.

The motion – an amendment of an original titled “Solidarity with Palestine” – was passed Tuesday with 19 votes in favor, 14 against and 1 abstention by the union’s elected national executive committee.

The motion was scheduled to be debated at the NUS annual conference in April, but was postponed due to a shortage of conference time.

The Solidarity with Palestine movement is designed to put economic pressure on Israel to change its policy and acknowledge its actions in Gaza.

During the summer of 2014, Israel’s Operation Protective Edge caused the death of more than 2,000 Palestinians.

Following the vote, the Union of Jewish Students accused the NUS NEC of “playing politics” and not connecting with students at universities to engage properly with the issue.

“Once again, the NUS NEC have passed a policy supporting the boycott divestment sanctions (BDS) movement. This is the second time in under a year that this debate has been had. The motion passed with 19 votes for, 14 against and one abstention after a heated debate,” the Union of Jewish Students said in a statement.

“Earlier this year, NUS conference rejected the call to debate BDS on conference floor this year, and yet NEC is still debating it. At what point will the NEC connect with students on campus, instead of playing at politics?

“[Jewish Societies] have been banned because they’re incompatible with BDS policies; Israeli individuals and academics have been blocked from delivering lectures on nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. Just look at Durban University of Technology, where they called for the expulsion of Jewish students, ‘especially those who do not support the Palestinian struggle,” the UJS said.

“Those in support of the BDS movement want the public to believe they don’t target individuals. Their actions and language regularly prove themselves as toxic forces on our campus and in our society.”

However, in a reply on the BDS Movement website, the campaign stressed how important student support was.

“Supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is one of the most important steps that student unions internationally can take to stand in solidarity with our struggle for freedom, justice and equality,” the BDS website said.

The group added that the level of support for BDS in the UK was “heartwarming.”

“This support for BDS is increasingly being matched with successful campaigns that have pressured universities to drop contracts with companies such as G4S and Veolia that participate in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians. We look forward to working with you to build even more successful and visible boycott campaigns in the months to come.”

The NUS recently voted against a motion to boycott Islamic State or anyone found to be supplying them with goods, travel or fighters.

The reason for refusing to pass the motion was that it could fuel Islamophobia and ultimately serve as a “justification of war,” the NUS said.



The Muslims who are punished so ferociously by ISIL might be glad of some solidarity from fellow Muslims abroad. Screenshot from the Islamic State propaganda video ‘Breaking the Borders’

Fury as NUS leaders vote to boycott Israel

By Naomi Firsht, Jewish Chronicle
June 04, 2015

The National Union of Students’ decision to boycott Israel has been condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jewish leaders in Britain.

On Tuesday the NUS national executive committee (NEC) voted to boycott Israeli companies and affiliate to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The move represents the most significant anti-Israel measure taken by students in Britain since 2011, when the same committee pledged to send flotillas to Gaza.

NUS’s NEC refused to condemn Islamic State terrorists last September on the grounds that doing so could be considered Islamophobic.

Mr Netanyahu said on Wednesday: “IS tramples human rights to the dust. It burns people alive in cages — and the national student groups in Britain refuse to boycott IS and have boycotted Israel.”

The boycott motion was proposed by the School of Oriental and African Studies students’ union. It passed with 19 votes for, 14 against and one abstention, in a secret ballot.

The policy is not binding for student unions, but unless overturned it will remain NUS policy for three years.
Britain’s Deputy Ambassador to Israel, Rob Dixon, said: “As David Cameron has said, the UK government will never allow those who want to boycott Israel to shut down 60 years’ worth of vibrant exchange and partnership.”

Board of Deputies president Jonathan Arkush said: “NUS sees no inconsistency in failing to condemn IS because Muslim students told them it could cause Islamophobia, while boycotting Israel even when the Union of Jewish Students said that it will fuel antisemitism.”

Mr Arkush said the move would lead to questions about NUS’s credibility and said the union had “betrayed” British students and “shamed” the country.

Jewish Leadership Council chief executive Simon Johnson said the NEC was as an “out of touch, grandstanding” group. “This was the action of a tiny fringe of supposed representatives at a small meeting,” he said.

The Union of Jewish Students said it would seek to overturn the policy either through the NUS board of trustees or with a new motion at the next NEC meeting at the end of July.

UJS campaigns director Maggie Suissa said: “It is not going to have an immediate effect on student unions.
“But we cannot ignore the symbolic importance. Every time the debate comes up on campus they can refer to this. Now more than ever we must find our allies and fight against it.”

NUS president Toni Pearce refused to comment, but outgoing vice-president Joe Vinson said he had voted against the motion. “I think antisemitism arises from BDS policies and it is very important to listen to Jewish student voices.”

He said British campuses “desperately need” nuanced debate on the Middle East.

In 2011 the NEC pledged to send UK students on flotillas to Gaza, and last summer union members backed a bid to educate students about BDS.

Conservative MP for Brentwood and Ongar Sir Eric Pickles condemned the “deplorable” NUS boycott of Israel. Commenting on the announcement, Sir Eric said: “The decision of the National Union of Students to boycott Israel and promote the hardline BDS movement is utterly deplorable. This boycott is a major infringement on the right to free speech and threatens the extraordinary academic, scientific, business, and cultural cooperation between Britain and Israel.

“It also threatens British jobs. The infiltration of the anti-peace agenda of BDS on British campuses will create an unacceptable atmosphere of intimidation for Israeli and Jewish student in the UK. The British Government should condemn this absurd decision and reiterate its strong opposition to boycotts of a key democratic ally in an unstable region.”

Tory MP for Hendon Matthew Offord said the vote was “deplorable but also illogical”. “Any proposal that seeks to support a movement which discriminates against academics and academic institutions based on their nationality rather than their personal or academic beliefs, runs contrary to the principles of academia – that of freedom of thought and the distribution of ideas. In fact, one could argue that Israeli academics have been some of the most prominent critics calling for change in Israel. It is therefore nonsensical that they are the target for an NUS boycott”, he said.



NUS National Executive support Israel boycott

By Gregor Smith, The Link*
June 03, 2015

EXCERPT

The [resolution] was confirmed by 19 votes for to 14 against. While the ballot was conducted secretly, one of the nay-sayers, Joe Vinson (NUS VP Further Education), tweeted that the plans were a front for antisemitism:


Joe Vinson @JoeVinson
Antisemitism is like a virus, it mutates and infects everything it touches. It’s mutated into BDS and NUS is infected. #nusnec
2:47 PM – 2 Jun 2015

Meanwhile, the Union of Jewish Students accused the NUS of “playing at politics”, adding: “This year, Jewish students collected over 2,000 signatures from more than ten campuses in support of a two state solution and against BDS. But, it seems that this loud voice is not enough. NUS NEC continues to ignore this critical mass and blindly dismiss Jewish students’ experiences.”

The deputy British ambassador to Israel, Dr. Rob Dixon, told The Times of Israel: “The reality is one of rapidly strengthening links between British and Israeli universities in science and academic cooperation. As David Cameron has said, the UK Government will never allow those who want to boycott Israel to shut down 60 years’ worth of vibrant exchange and partnership that does so much to make both our countries stronger.”

However, SOAS’ Sai Englert accused the opposition to the motion of “attempting to smear” the boycotters:

Sai Englert
I wonder wether pro-South African Apartheid activists attempted to smear the solidarity movement as racist, or is that only Zio’s #nusnec
— Sai Englert (@SaiEnglert) June 2, 2015

The NUS also voted for a national day of student action on 29 November, UN Palestine Solidarity Day.



UK universities umbrella group rejects calls to join BDS campaign

The board of Universities UK says in statement it ‘firmly opposes academic boycotts on the basis that they are inimical to academic freedom, including the freedom of academics to collaborate with other academics’.

By Itamar Eichner, Ynet news
June 03, 2015

Universities UK, the umbrella group for higher education institutes in Britain, said Wednesday it “firmly opposes” any academic boycott of Israeli universities, a day after the UK’s National Union of Students (NUS) voted to back the BDS campaign against Israel.

“The board of Universities UK is committed to the free exchange of ideas between universities and between academics, regardless of nationality or location,” the group’s statement said. “The board therefore firmly opposes academic boycotts on the basis that they are inimical to academic freedom, including the freedom of academics to collaborate with other academics.”

The statement went on to say that “The board also confirms its view that all universities must uphold, in the interests of free expression of ideas, the fundamental right of academics to question national and international policies.”

Motion 518, “Justice for Palestine,” passed by the NUS on Tuesday, with a majority of 19 votes in favor, 12 votes against and three abstentions.

The motion, passed by the union’s National Executive Council, condemns Israel’s military presence in the West Bank and Gaza, and mandates the student body to “coordinate a nationwide student day of action to commemorate UN Palestine solidarity Day on 29 November.”

The motion accuses the IDF of “directly attacking the right to education in Gaza,” noting that “UN schools and the Islamic University of Gaza were amongst the infrastructure Israel targeted during its assault on Gaza.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the move on Wednesday.

“Israel has an exemplary democracy,” Netanyahu said. “We have academic freedom, press freedom, human rights. ISIS tramples human rights to the dust. It burns people alive in cages and the national student groups in Britain refuse to boycott ISIS and have boycotted Israel.”

Israeli legislators discussed the NUS vote to join the BDS campaign at a special Knesset session.

“This is antisemitism under new guise with the same symptoms,” said Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.

“There is a de-legitimization campaign against Israel happening right now. These are ephemeral organizations and we need to stop cooperating with them and cut ties, have them pay for their boycotts,” she added.

Opposition MKs, meanwhile, blamed the Netanyahu government of taking measures that led the BDS Movement to gain more power. “Those who work in the service of this boycott are members of the Netanyahu government. They are those who impose separation on buses and release videos of Arabs ‘going in droves’ (to the polls) and claims Arabs are playing games,” Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Galon said.

“The way to deal with the increasing boycotting against Israel is not hasbara (diplomatic relations), but putting an end to the occupation,” said Meretz MK Michal Rozin. “The government must internalize that the boycott is a wakeup call and not antisemitic propaganda against the state.”



Yair Lapid calls on UK government to condemn NUS boycott of Israel

Jewish News
June 02, 2015

Yair Lapid has called upon the UK government to condemn the decision by the National Union of Students (NUS) to join the BDS movement.

Lapid, the leader of Israeli party Yesh Atid, called for the action after NUS’s National Executive Council voted on Tuesday, for ‘ Justice for Palestine’, with an amendment which included Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions.

MK Yair Lapid said, “I call upon the British government to condemn this move which only serves to stir up hatred and which undermines any hope for diplomatic progress. The decision by the NUS to join the BDS movement is hypocritical and one sided, it fails to even mention terrorism and the firing of rockets against Israel. How can an organization which refuses to condemn the brutal terrorists of ISIS but calls for a boycott of Israel be taken seriously?”

Lapid, who will be visiting the United Kingdom later this month, stressed that he would act on the matter and said, “At the end of the month I will be visiting the UK. I intend to raise the issue with the government and leading opinion leaders so that we can fight against this. Yesh Atid sees the fight against attempts to boycott Israel as a top priority in the international arena.”

* “The Linc is the independent, multi-award winning, student-run publication from the University of Lincoln, in the UK.”

 

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