BDS supporter stands as president of students’ Jewish union

Article from Jewish Chronicle, video of Seven Jewish Children, York debate about whether it should have been shown

York Palestine Solidarity Society advertises Israeli Apartheid Week, 2016

Israel boycott activist is running as a candidate for the UJS presidency

By Daniel Sugarman, Jewish Chronicle
November 22, 2016

One of the three candidates nominated for the position of president of the Union of Jewish Students is an anti-Zionist with a history of pro-boycott activism, it has emerged.

Eran Cohen [sic], who grew up in Israel, was the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions officer for the University of York’s Palestinian Solidarity Society, and has openly called for a boycott of Israel, as well as promoting “Palestinian Apartheid Week” at the university.

In February of this year he co-produced and acted in the society’s production of Seven Jewish Children, a play which has been described as antisemitic in its depiction of Israel.

In one discussion on his Facebook page, responding to the comment: “according to the European working definition of antisemitism, questioning the legality of the existence of Israel is antisemitic”, Mr Cohen wrote: “I’m aware of that definition, and I disagree with that clause.”

In October last year, as Jews in Israel were being targeted by stabbing attacks on a daily basis, Mr Cohen shared and translated a statement on Facebook which said: “To those worried that a new intifada is beginning now in Israel, let me explain why you should not be worried. None of the violent events in recent days occurred in Israel and none of the victims was a resident of Israel.”

The post went on to say the attacks took place in “occupied East Jerusalem”, and that: “There is no intifada in Israel. The escalation is occurring in the occupied territories and is born of the occupation. We can save the next victims with no problem, we just don’t feel like it. We feel like occupation. We feel like death.”

In a separate discussion, he declared his support for the BDS movement, saying: “I support it because I believe it will bring about a secular state for all its citizens from the river to the sea. Some people equate that with the destruction of Israel.I don’t.”

Today UJS released a statement saying: “Our students have nominated three very different candidates for the UJS Presidency. We are excited about the levels of engagement in our representative cross-communal union this dynamic and contested election should generate.”

A spokesperson for the organisation confirmed that in order to have been considered for the election, each candidate needed to have received 10 nominations, from members of at least five campus Jewish societies.

UJS is a separate entity from specific university JSocs; it is possible to be a member of UJS without being a member of a Jsoc, and vice-versa.

The UJS also confirmed that it has instituted a “manual registration system” for would-be membership applicants, designed “to prevent fraudulent accounts being created during the election period”.

I believe the focus of Jewish life is wherever Jews live, and excessive focus on Israel damages the UK Jewish community
Eran Kahane

In a statement received via his “campaign team”, Mr Cohen said: “UJS should represent all Jewish students – Zionist or not.

“I am a diasporist – I believe the focus of Jewish life is wherever Jews live, and excessive focus on Israel damages the UK Jewish community.

“There are many left-wing Jewish students, both Zionist and not, who support my campaign.

“Jewish students are diverse, and UJS is supposed to be democratic – it doesn’t stand for anything other than what Jewish students want at any particular time.”

In a subsequent statement, Mr Cohen confirmed that he “supports BDS as a nonviolent tool to effect change.”

“Whether or not UJS advocates a boycott of Israel will depend on how members vote at their upcoming conference,” he said.

“I personally would like to see UJS engaging in all nonviolent methods that will bring about peace in the region.”

He added: “I am standing because myself and many other Jewish students have continued to be alienated from our communities, the JSocs and UJS, since as long as anybody can remember.

“We want to be part of this community, part of the discussions it has. We’re fed up of abuse and isolation, so we decided to finally try to get some representation.”

Mr Cohen’s team said they objected to the candidate being labelled “anti-Israel”.

They said: “It is offensive and misleading, as well as simply not true. Eran’s desire to end the occupation stems from a love of Israel, Palestine and their peoples.”

They claimed: “Seventy-one per cent of British Jews oppose the occupation, so Eran is by no means in a minority.”

Mr Cohen is backed by members of Jewdas, a London-based left-wing Jewish activist group.

He said he had secured more than the minimum 10 nominations necessary to stand as a candidate, adding that his campaign team was drawn from “many university campuses including Kings, Sheffield, Goldsmiths, York, Manchester, Bristol, Queen Mary’s and Leeds”.

Video of Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill in a production by PalFest. 13’27 minutes.

YES/NO: Should the play ‘Seven Jewish Children’ have been allowed to happen?

By York Vision
01 March 2016

YES – ERAN KAHANE, PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY SOCIETY

This play is not antisemitic, it is anti-Zionist. Political theatre is not journalism, it does not claim, nor is it required, to be unbiased. The play presents right-wing Zionism in all its jingoistic racist ugliness. Freedom of expression gives us a right to articulate this political opinion, just like our Zionist peers have the right to perform a play showing the nice side of Israel.

What is happening here is something that non-Zionist Jews are well used to: Our voices being shut down by proponents of Israel with false accusations of antisemitism. Five Jewish anti-Zionist students saw the play and had no problem with it, while three Jewish Zionist students saw it and had a problem with it. So is the play more likely to be anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist?
As to the specific lines under scrutiny:

“They’re animals…I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out…we’re chosen people.

“Don’t tell her about the family of dead girls…tell her we killed the babies by mistake…tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies?”

The former does indeed show a genocidal racist hatred. The right-wing of Israeli society absolutely displays these beliefs, including the use of poorly understood Jewish theological concepts to justify their beliefs. In Jerusalem, we have gangs of young men patrolling the streets to beat up Palestinians, at right-wing rallies they sing, “A Jew is a soul, an Arab is a whore’s son,” during the 2014 assault on Gaza there were those who drove to the border to watch bombs drop and cheer. This is a very real and politically powerful part of Israeli society which it is important to expose.

Accusations over the latter seek to connect criticism of the IDF’s brutal military tactics with the historical antisemitic blood libel myth. In 2014, the IDF’s indiscriminate bombardment led to the death of over 500 children in one month. There absolutely were dead babies, and Zionist Jewish Israeli parents whose kids see the news have a hard time explaining this away: “Tell her we killed the babies by mistake.” Every week, young Palestinians who go out to protest against the occupation are fired on with live ammunition, and every week we have more death. It is absolutely not blood libel to criticise Israeli policies that lead to the deaths of children.

NO – THE JEWISH SOCIETY

The Jewish Society would like to release a statement on the event organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Society (“PSS”) entitled Seven Jewish Children. The Jewish Society condemns this event in the strongest possible terms. It contains references to strong antisemitic tropes and reflects very poorly on the PSS. Seven Jewish Children is not a play about Israel. The words Israel, Israelis, Zionism and Zionist are not mentioned once in the play, while Jews and alleged Jewish behaviour is core throughout it. We are often told that when people talk about Israel or Zionists, it is mischievous to accuse them of meaning Jews. Now we are expected to imagine that a play that talks only of Jews, in fact, means Israelis.

However, what provides far greater worry for the Jewish Society is the lack of concern regarding antisemitism that is shown by the University of York’s Students’ Union (“YUSU”). The Jewish Society reported the anti-Semitic content of the play hosted by the PSS to YUSU at the earliest opportunity. YUSU responded explaining that it does not operate a ‘no-platform’ policy and that the event had been approved as it was deemed safe. This is a classic, and awful, example of how Jewish concerns are treated with contempt by a student body that claims to have universal anti-racist values.

Despite YUSU’s dismissal of no-platform policies, YUSU has not taken a stand against this play and the antisemitism therein.  The Jewish Society finds this approach to be entirely inconsistent with YUSU’s commitment to challenging antisemitism in a serious manner.

The Jewish Society was not contacted by YUSU, or the University regarding this event. In fact, the number of times that the Jewish Society has been contacted by YUSU (including BME officers) or the University about the welfare and safety of Jewish students has been nil. The Jewish Society has been completely alone in the battle against antisemitism on campus. Despite the claims that the University and YUSU take antisemitism seriously, there has been no positive action to do so. The Jewish Society, however, considers actions to be much more indicative than words in this fight against antisemitism.

Jewish students at the University of York are a minority of a minority. Our numbers struggle to reach 30, and yet our welfare is not considered as important as free speech. When the Jewish Society has raised very legitimate concerns of antisemitism on campus, YUSU has refused to act – leaving us alone in the battle against antisemitism. So alone we have been told to report these incidences to the police because YUSU refuses to take action.

The intention of the Jewish Society in publishing this statement is to bring to light the serious failings to look after Jewish students on campus by YUSU and the University. In doing so, the Jewish Society hopes that members of the University community – both students and the administration – become more sensitised and aware of the issues facing Jewish students.