Right, so at the risk of distracting from where focus should be, which is the ongoing plight of Palestinians, it’s still important to challenge the ongoing pro-Israeli narratives and we’re seeing that in no small part in the US, on college campuses, students saying enough is enough and being referred to as antisemitic mobs taking over in the words of Israel’s genocidal maniac of a Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, because they wish their colleges to divest themselves of financial interests in Israel, to disassociate themselves from the Zionist regime, very much a not in our names moment and because college administrations have kicked back over this, the movement has spread across multiple colleges and Universities. Young people in America are not backing down.
So where will that end? Well for as much as what is happening in the US is gaining a lot of traction, where this ends is demonstrated in an appalling underreported story that has actually been rumbling along for years now in this country, the sacking of a democratically elected union body president for holding anti-Zionist beliefs and the cost of which to her former administration for siding with Israel, which has now passed the £1m mark.
Right, so let’s start with what has been going on in the US here, on US campuses, which began at Columbia University in New York, but because of what has happened there, the reaction they’ve got, it has spread, such has been the horrified and appalled reactions by other students in the US and across the world actually as is beginning to take hold also. It began at Columbia, where the students have been protesting the administration there, the New York Times have put an article out reading: ‘College Protesters Make Divestment From Israel a Rallying Cry’, using the chant ‘Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,’ demanding the school administrators do just that, the D form BDS, possibly the least understood word amongst Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, to divest is simply the opposite of invest, so pull all financial interests they might have in the state of Israel out and this has spread from Columbia, to Yale, Harvard, University of Southern California, Cornell and more. It’s a growing movement, though the divestment demands might vary slightly as this excerpt from the NYT shows:
‘What it actually means has varied in scope, and level of detail. At Yale and Cornell, students have called on the universities to stop investing in weapons manufacturers. Columbia students are demanding the sale of holdings in funds and businesses that activists say are profiting from Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and the longer-term occupation of Palestinian lands — including Google, which has a large contract with the Israeli government, and Airbnb, which allows listings in Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.’
Now the counter argument being presented is that the effect of divestment from schools, colleges and universities would be negligible, but that isn’t the point. It is students, and teachers it has to be said as well, exercising their right to take a stand against the genocide they see happening, that their government refuses to stop funding and of course as this story becomes bigger and bigger, it becomes more a source of national embarrassment, and when those in charge are so ardently pro Israel, from government level down to school administration level, they haven’t helped themselves in how they’ve reacted, from arrests, to barring students from entering campus, because peaceful protest just isn’t acceptable to them. Footage across social media has shown significant police aggression, yet all the time you have to remember what the so called law are actually standing to protect – Israel being allowed to commit genocide and the state protecting that. At Columbia, students were allegedly attacked with the Israeli chemical skunk, that the IDF use against protesters and Palestinians, delivered by two former IDF soldiers at that so the story goes and reputedly this stuffsmells worse than raw sewage. It’s grim. More grim, was Netanyahu, seemingly belying how insignificant an impact these4 actions might have, putting out a video, a sickening video, calling these protesters an antisemitic mob, conflating hatred of Jews with legitimate criticism of the Israeli state, nothing new there, but he actually went so far as to compare what is happening in America to what happened in 1930s Germany, because he is the sort of person to do that. The genocidalist once more playing the victim and expecting to be believed.
He won’t be by those protesting, his arrogance will harden resolve I hope and a great many anti Zionist Jews around the world are expressing solidarity with the students, because there is absolutely nothing antisemitic in what they are doing, standing up for the oppressed and against the oppressors.
But where does this ultimately end, or where can it end? Well for an insight into how things can pan out further down the line, it’s worth looking at an ongoing story that has had far, far less coverage and actually takes place here in the UK and this is the story of the sacking of the elected President of the National Union of Students, so this is directly relatable to what is happening in the US, the sacking of Shaima Dallali.
Shaima Dallali was elected to the full time employed position of President of the NUS in March of 2022. She has always held staunch pro Palestinian beliefs, she has been outspoken in her condemnation of antisemitism as well, however she is also avowedly anti Zionist, which of course as we know is not antisemitic in and of itself. As much as the state of Israel would like state criticism to be considered racist, it isn’t, but that hasn’t stopped those who think that way, or would seek to use that as a weapon, from seeking to bring her down for her views, even though they are protected under the Equalities Act of 2010.
Following her election, the complaints began. Personal abuse and threats as well, all amounting to conflating her legitimate views with being racist, but also, in what strikes me as remarkably Islamophobic, complaints relating to her association with Muslims and Muslim human rights organisations were made as well! Some truly charming people.
Choosing to act on these complaints the NUS undertook what became a farce of an investigation, seemingly designed to ensure her dismissal. Complainants were allegedly allowed to decide who would investigate and the terms of the investigation against Shaima Dallali, she wasn’t. She wasn’t allowed legal representation, written submissions from here were refused to be admitted as evidence in her case and the complaints were publicised. She finally learned that she had been dismissed from her role as President in the November of 2022 and found out via Twitter. It was the first day of Islamophobia Awareness Month at that.
Well, she hasn’t accepted it and in March of 2023, she commenced Employment Tribunal Proceedings against the NUS, for unfair dismissal and she had had much in the way of well wishes and support already ahead this move, from the likes of the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and FOSIS, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, who represent Muslim students. Part of the statement issues by the Muslim Association of Britain reads:
‘This is the first time in the history of the NUS’ existence that a democratically elected President, who also happens to be a Muslim, black, Hijabi woman, has been removed from their position.
There is no doubt that this is an act of Islamophobia that sends a clear message to Muslim students that they are not welcome in the NUS. The NUS is allowing a hostile environment which demonises, marginalises and exposes Muslim students and those engaged in pro-Palestinian activism to Islamophobic attacks.’
Absolutely true in my view, this is very much the hierarchy of racism playing out before our eyes surely?
So where do things stand now? Well the case is still ongoing and the costs are adding up. The NUS have accepted that Dallali’s anti-Zionist beliefs are protected under the Equalities Act, but they haven’t relented, they haven’t backed down, they haven’t settled.
According to the Times, rare praise for actually covering something relevant for once, showed that the investigation in 2022 cost the NUS £622,500 and legal costs for 2023 amounted to another £222,500. Therefore to date it seems entirely plausible, especially since none of those costs factor in the legal fees covering Dallali’s defamation claim, that the NUS has already shelled out over £1m in fighting this. The cost of Zionism it would seem. Six years ago, the NUS nearly went bankrupt, so how can they sustain this? Well there’s a spokesperson’s quote at the end of the Times piece said the union had:
‘Committed significant time, money and resource to tackling antisemitism in [the] NUS and across the student movement. We will do whatever it takes to achieve this.’
Including go bust? For what? £1m that could and should have been spent on students has instead been wasted fighting a battle instigated not by people fighting antisemitism, but weaponising it instead. Criticism of Zionism isn’t racist, it is a protected characteristic, it is our right to be appalled at what the Israeli regime says and does and no matter how much they say otherwise, it doesn’t make it true and if the NUS lose their shirt fighting this, they’ll only have themselves to blame.
Meanwhile of course the weapons sales continue, not just in the US but from the UK as well, David Cameron signing off on more arms sales just two days after the deaths of the World Central Kitchen aid workers no less, three of whom were British, thus giving the impression Cameron values those sales more than he does British lives, find out more about this shocker of a story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.