From David Collier’s blog Beyond The Great Divide
Yet another page of shame has been written in the history books of a student union in the UK. This time it was UCL or UCLU (University College London Union). On Tuesday 8/3/2016, a mob of rabid, semi-ignorant, hate-filled ‘red fascists’ assembled together to play ‘government’.
One of the motions tabled (unsurprisingly, given the make-up of the council), was to decide whether or not to support the boycott of Israel. Israel is a touchy subject amongst student unions these days. Time was, that the tiny Jewish state, surrounded by blood thirsty despots like Nasser, Saddam Hussein, the Ayatollah & Gaddafi could count on students to easily differentiate right from wrong.
Today, with talk of the Zionist run USA or Mossad being behind ISIS and 9/11 only too common in certain student quarters, all semblance of moral order has been lost. Israel, whilst still the target for every radical Islamic nutcase in a region that never runs out of them, has somehow become the cause of everything that is wrong in the student world. No doubt Netanyahu, seeing as ‘Zionists’ control the US, UK and the banks, is also responsible for raising university fees.
Think of a nasty accusation and place it before the word Zionist. They all work. ‘Racist’ – easy, ‘Ethnic Cleansing’- but of course, ‘Genocide’ – sure, even ‘Apartheid’ works, all placed on the only liberal country in the entire region where everyone has a free vote. Funny how some UCL students wouldn’t even be allowed to enter cities in Saudi Arabia because of their religion, yet that issue fails to bother a student union council that clearly isn’t working to an agenda about ‘universal’ human rights.
The real motive:
To deal with the claim that the student union vote was actually about human rights. Let’s just look at the central force behind the #BDS motion. UCLU Friends of Palestine Society.
This from last years ‘Activities Officer’ Katba Imansouren: She was meant to be representing ‘all students’ when she made this ‘call to arms’.
Now I wouldn’t want to be presumptuous, but I doubt that the student body at UCL would want to engage in a Holy War to save Al Aqsa. But what is clear from the post (that is devoid of all talk of human rights) is that there is a religious angle being played here. Al Aqsa is under attack – ‘we must unite’. Hands up everyone who believes this argument wasn’t used at the #BDS vote.
Just in case anyone wishes to imply that sentiment wasn’t a central theme: Just 4 months ago, UCLU had an entire week dedicated to this specific cause.
This is a post from the UCLU FOPS . This takes it even further. It asks what can be done as an ”ummah’, to protect and defend Al -Aqsa. Wiki translates ‘ummah’ as ‘the collective community of Islamic peoples’. Perhaps the cynical answer to the question would be: ‘get elected to the student union and then vote to boycott the Jews’. After all, it is rather coincidental that Al-Aqsa mosque just happens to be inside the same nation they want the student union to boycott.
So let’s check the human rights angle a little further. Let’s see what the UCL Friends of Palestine Society make of Hamas, a terror group that executes its own people in the streets. Hamas has committed untold atrocities against innocent civilians, freely uses child labour and is a proscribed terror organisation across most of the Western World. Hamas, within its ‘covenant’, specifically talks about the murder of Jews (not ‘Zionists’, ‘Jews’):
I think that has to be read two or three times to be believed. Did I mention that Hamas are a radical Islamic group? And did I point out Hamas ‘represents the Arab-Israeli conflict as an inherently irreconcilable struggle between Jews and Muslims‘. Perhaps the intention is that they will unite with UCLU FOPS to save Al Aqsa. Remember, this society is the primary force *behind* a vote that seeks to boycott the Jewish State of Israel for ‘humanitarian reasons’. Like most pro-Palestinian groups, even when they push the conflict onto their groupies, they choose to push little more ‘than a regurgitation of the vilest antisemitic charges of the past millennium‘.
And there is more. Remember Saladin? Saladin Al Ayoubi? I am a fan of history, and great men forge their own path and change the face of the planet on which they walk. Saladin was a great man.
“Saladin (1137/1138–1193) was a Muslim military and political leader who as sultan (or leader) led Islamic forces during the Crusades. Saladin’s greatest triumph over the European Crusaders came at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, which paved the way for Islamic re-conquest of Jerusalem and other Holy Land cities in the Near East. …On July 4, 1187, the Muslim forces of Saladin (Salah al-Din) decisively defeated the crusader army south of the Horns of Hattin in Palestine, capturing Guy, king of Jerusalem; Reginald of Châtillon, Saladin’s enemy whom he personally killed; over two hundred Knights Hospitaller and Templar Knightly Orders whom he ordered to be killed; and many crusaders whom he ransomed. The remaining captured Christians were sold on the local slave markets.”
Whatever your own personal take on military leaders in history, those who wish to uphold the idea of universal values, human rights and peace would have difficulty with him as a role model. Groups like Amnesty, War on Want and Greenpeace would view Saladin as a Vegan would view a T-Bone steak:
Unless of course the Friends of Palestine call for #BDS isn’t actually one of universal values at all.
The issue isn’t that members of this group have these beliefs. They want to protect the Mosque in Jerusalem (read- keep filthy Jewish feet out), and believe it is the duty of the ‘collective community of Islamic people’ to defend it. They think the radical Islamic terror group Hamas is some kind of model army. They use the man who waged holy war and created an Islamic empire as a role model. I have no problem with anyone’s belief. I do however have an issue when they hide the truth and push a lie to deceive all around them. More so when the target is Jewish. This is not a humanitarian argument, nor is it interested in truth. Let’s be honest, this is not how they pushed the case for #BDS at the vote. So let us move onto the next issue – how have these few activists made this ‘religious war’ against Jews a UCLU issue? Simple, they did it by skewing and abusing the democratic process.
Democracy at UCL this isn’t
The vote that took place did so with just 18 votes. The officers present did have a choice. According to Ben Towse, one of only 4 Officers to vote against the motion (Kudo’s Ben), there was a discussion about taking the issue to a wider vote on campus:
Except they didn’t think it necessary. This bunch decided they were ‘representative enough’!
So let’s walk down the ‘democratic’ angle. After the celebratory postings following the successful passing of the motion, Ariel Tamman, co-president of the Friends of Israel Society, said anti-Israel activity had become more “invasive” and Union of Jewish Students Campaigns Director Russell Langer told Jewish News the decision was “extremely disappointing” and “completely undemocratic and unrepresentative”. Addressing the ‘undemocratic’ claim, Israel hating Ben White, an ever-present figure at every #BDS party, and one of the UK BDS campaigns poster children, wrote an article in Middle East Monitor that responded: ‘UJS did not elaborate on how a decision made by elected student officers was ‘undemocratic’. So as Ben has a difficulty understanding what democracy means, let me help him out.
This from Paddy Baker, Deputy Editor of The Tab, London just two days before the vote, in a piece titled‘Union officers are becoming increasingly out of touch and irrelevant’
‘Although this year was marketed as the ‘Big Vote’ by a Union desperately attempting to get students interested in University Politics, the elections for 2016/7 were nonetheless disappointing and dismal.
It’s clear as crystal that UCL suffers from a very unenthusiastic and apathetic student electorate: out of a student population of approximately 30,000, only 5,000 people actually voted- an embarrassing 16 per cent turnout. Many positions, including full-time ones such as Activities and Events Officer, had just one candidate standing with other positions – such as the Mature and Part Time Students’ Officer – remaining vacant as not a single candidate put themselves up for election.’
It seems to be a recurring theme:
Some of the statements in the piece are troubling:
‘But Sabbatical Officers have only themselves to blame for student apathy, in part because there was a distinct lack of attempt to engage with the student population: “I barely know what it is”, complained second year Lewis. The Welcome Assembly received little publicity and many students expressed anger at simply not being told, especially when they realised what motions were being discussed.’
And the comments from the piece are also enlightening:
‘The corruption in voting is outrageous. Go into the quad, or anywhere within about five miles of campus, and you’ll be swamped with people with ipads asking me to log in and vote for their friends. Is that how democracy works? Whoever can muster enough minions with ipads wins? Furthermore, whenever I tell them I think its anti-democratic harassing me to vote for them, these campaigners would get aggressive, and when theres three or four of them around you it can quickly evolve into a very intimidating situation.’
This isn’t democracy, and it is important that these students understand it. Their freedoms, especially those from minority groups, are dependent on people given the responsibility of office behaving in a manner directly opposite from the way these activist officers have done. People in office make laws. How would our nation look if every small group used and abused the system so as to get away with ‘what they can’, rather than actually deal with issues in the wider community they were voted in office to represent? What if they failed to take into consideration that minority groups needed protection too? That isn’t democracy it is majoritarianism (understand now Ben?). Sniggering and plotting amongst themselves about which of their own personal little hatreds they can enforce on everyone around them. And when the vote passes – high fives all round. How vile. I don’t even care that for some of them, fighting for Al Aqsa is a reasonable cause. What shouldn’t be allowed is bringing this argument onto campus. They have clearly done so, however much these individuals may protest this is not the case.
This is what this nasty little mob did. They saw an opportunity and took it. Rejecting a more democratic option, they chose to force through a cause that ‘religiously’ several of them identify with. In doing so this minority enforced the engagement of Muslims and Jews on a UK university campus in a conflict that neither seeks, and ensured also, the remaining students took sides with them. They got away with it because they know the jargon and ‘cleanse’ the argument prior to a vote to make sure only humanitarian arguments are expressed. Then, supported by a few red fascists who either don’t care, were duped into believing this was a humanitarian cause, or have an issue with Jews themselves, they voted that the entire student union should go ahead and enforce a boycott on the Jewish State. The rest of the UCL student body, whatever their belief, has now been gathered together to unite in the fight to save Al Aqsa mosque. This is not the face we want for London in 2016. The students of UCL need to, have to, put this wretched little mob back in its place.
