Next week in the UK the National Union of Students will be holding their annual conference. A great many of the attendees will be patting themselves on the back on getting Boycott Divestment and Sanctions motions passed by their student unions. They’ll either elect a new NUS President or re-elect the incumbent.
The main contender for the position is Malia Bouattia. Bouattia seems to think there are too many Jews at Birmingham University. In 2011 she co-authored a blog saying:
The University of Birmingham is something of a Zionist outpost in British Higher Education. It also has the largest JSoc in the country whose leadership is dominated by Zionist activists. Just a month ago the ominous EUMC definition of anti-Semitism was adopted as legislation by the student union and the university’s Friends of Palestine society narrowly avoided severe sanctions after one of our guest speakers made a comparison between Israel and the Nazis
In 2014 from her position on the National Executive Council of the NUS Bouattia pushed through two motions condemning Israel in the same meeting, (because one just isn’t enough). The results of those for student body of the UK were as follows;
in the same year Bouattia killed a motion calling on the National Union of Students to condemn the Islamic State, saying:
We recognise that condemnation of Isis appears to have become a justification for war and blatant islamophobia. This rhetoric exacerbates the issue at hand and in essence is a further attack on those we aim to defend.”
When it comes to the specter of antisemitism from constant attacks against Israel there is no such sensitivity. On the contrary she is the one leading the charge. These motions weren’t enough for Bouattia, she also co-edited a Boycott Divestment and Sanctions handbook which she proceeded to distribute to universities throughout the United Kingdom through the Black Students’ Campaign which she currently heads.
Here’s a picture from the handbook:
The Arabic word above says “Palestine”. Although there are no calls for the direct removal of Israel in the book the choice of this image leaves little to the imagination.
According to the BDS handbook (page 22) Israel isn’t just an Apartheid state it is worse than Apartheid South Africa:
It is perhaps not surprising that both Apartheid South Africa and Israel use similar tactics of domination: both are settler colonies, in which a minority of settlers need to control and divide the indigenous population in order to promote colonialism.
The difference is that whereas white south Africans did so in order to exploit the black population, the Israelis apply these methods to eliminate and displace the Palestinian population entirely.
This book is listed as being published by “NUS HQ” on the inside cover.
It shouldn’t need to be said, but clearly it does. ISIS are committing genocide in the Middle East. Israel is a country in the Middle East defending itself from those who wish to perpetrate genocide against it. Furthermore it is the physical manifestation of a country that rose from the ashes of genocide, that revived a devastated people, culture and language.
Bouattia would do well to learn the difference.
But she won’t. Instead she’ll be running for President of the National Union of Students. If you live in the UK she will be the one determining the atmosphere of the campus where your child goes to study. If you don’t like the sound of that…there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Oh by the way Palestinians living in the West Bank won’t have noticed many of her efforts because none of them involve offering any practical help to Palestinians on the ground. In the world of British student politics that doesn’t matter. Providing practical help to Palestinians comes second to making it look like you really, really care.
A letter signed by presidents of Jewish Societies at universities across the United Kingdom voicing their concerns about Bouattia as a President of NUS was published by the Jewish Chronicle, the Union of Jewish Students has asked Malia for clarification of her views. The Jewish Chronicle quotes Bouattia as saying:
To take issue with Zionist politics is not taking issue with being Jewish”
So there it is. Vote Malia Bouattia for NUS President. She claims to fight antisemitism while brushing off criticism from Jewish societies as Zionist
