Following a link from Eve Garrard’s latest guest-posting at normblog (about the proposed AUT boycott of Israeli academics), I found an astonishing report of antisemitism at the recent conference of the National Union of Students.
The report (on a discussion forum of the Birmingham University Guild of Students) includes the text of a speech by Luciana Berger, in which she announced her resignation from the NUS executive committee along with two other Jewish members. She called the NUS “a bystander to Jew hatred” and accused other NUS leaders of failing to respond.
Berger, a co-convener of the NUS Anti-Racism/Anti-Fascism Campaign, declared: “At the beginning of this conference I stood here and warned you against the BNP presence in Blackpool. But it is within these walls I feel most afraid.”
Among other things, she mentioned an antisemitic leaflet which was available in the conference building for two days.
She credited two leftwing organizations– the National Organisation of Labour Students and the Alliance for Workers Liberty– for standing by Jewish students when they came under attack. So please, no blanket condemnations of “the Left” for tolerating antisemitism.
I can’t find any media coverage of these events. If any of our readers were at the NUS conference, perhaps they can tell us more.
Update: With a few exceptions, the comments here (especially for a serious topic) are really out of control. Therefore I’m closing the comments box. But anyone who has some genuine insight or information about the NUS situation is welcome to contact me by email (address at left).
