A CUSU sponsored joint Israel-Palestine awareness week was scrapped with hours to go last week, and replaced by an ‘Israeli-Apartheid’ week.
The joint event was proposed in the wake of January’s Law Fac occupation.
A motion to ‘support student-led initiatives in educating students on the issues in discussions from all points of view’ was tabled by Becky Talmy at a CUSU meeting on January 28th.
The motion passed with the name of ‘Educating Students and Supporting Student-led Initiatives about Palestine and Israel’, after the original motion in support of Gaza was changed to ‘remove the possible political bias of the motion to make it more balanced’, according to the minutes of the meeting.
The planned week of ‘awareness-raising’ brought in CU Israel Society and CU Palestine Society (CUPal), however, after two months of preparation, a CUPal leadership reshuffle led to the new President pulling out of the event.
CUPal decided to re-embrace the plans shortly afterwards, with the hope of a week focussed on mutual debate of controversial issues.
CUPal invited Daud Abdullah, vice-president of the Muslim Council of Britain, to speak. Abudllah is a controversial figure, praised with limiting extremism but criticised for leading the MCB’s boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Last Wednesday, the President of CU Israel Soc decided that he would not put his society’s name to Abdullah's talk. He emailed CUSU explaining, ‘Israel Society cannot participate in [that] event. We remain committed to the rest of the week.’
No reply was issued by CUPal, who on Saturday night invited their mailing list to ‘Israel-Apartheid’ week. The new week involved many of the previously booked speakers and venues.
Not until the next day did CUSU confirm to Israel Soc that the planned ‘Israel-Palestine’ week had been cancelled. CUSU offered no explanation.
Further speakers scheduled for ‘Israel-Apartheid’ week include Azzam Tamimi, banned from UCL for his praising of martyrdom.
Becky Talmy told The Tab, "CUSU couldn't have put its name to Pal Soc's rebranded events’ because, ‘it is not what CUSU was mandated to do. The motion was passed on the condition that CUSU was neutral."
CU Israel soc has accused CUSU of being "useless", but Talmy has defended the efforts made to mediate. She said CUPal did not communicate their plans to withdraw, with CUSU only informed of the change through the email invitation to ‘Israel-Apartheid’ week.
Talmy explained that the crisis was due to a clash between the leaderships of different societies. ‘there seemed to be no willingness to engage in dialogue, ironically.’
"I know CUPal felt frustrated that Israel Soc were shying away from the nitty-gritty politics, but, equally, I know that Israel Soc genuinely did feel threatened by the invitation of Daud Abdeullah", she continued.
Abdullah Al-Jeffery of CUPal said, "we made it very clear from the beginning and repeatedly to all parties involved, that there should be NO preconditions imposed by either side on whom each side wishes to invite to speak [sic] … It was beyond question that any attempt to censor the choice of speakers destroyed any hope for integrity of the proposed endeavour."
The issue is indicative of a wider debate about the role of ‘hate-speakers’ on British campuses and how far free speech must be balanced with inciting racial or other hatred.
However, Talmy said: "the student movement doesn't seem to be organising effectively to fight fees and cuts, so perhaps it was a bit optimistic to think that we might be able to do something useful about Israel-Palestine."
LOL @ the idea of CUSU sabs sitting round a table thinking 'hmmm we can't change issues students actually care about, lets try solving the Middle-East conflict, no-one's tried that before'
Does CUPal not realise that nobody cares about their attempts to demonize Israel anymore? we're sick and tired of their radical messages.
If you have to resort to inviting racists and inciters of violence to make you're point, doesn't that suggest that that you may find yourself on the wrong side of history?
CUSU is a democracy, so it is not the sabbs that take decisions like that. The sabbs are instructed by CUSU Council. Any student can take a proposal to Council and then it is JCR reps, MCR reps and faculty reps that decide whether to go ahead or not.
As someone with little knowledge of the region, I was looking forward to a week of balanced and interesting debate.
Palestine Society have replaced that with propaganda and expect us to swallow it?!
They are treating our union and fellow students with no respect! How dare they invite these preachers of unconditional hate to our university! They have chosen howling accusations over credible debate. Shame on them.
Verity Alexander: I thought you just said you had little knowledge of the region…
So why do you judge these speakers before knowing anything about them? …'Unconditional hate' – who said that?
It is not a crime to be anti-Isreal (although it might not be helpful) and with the appalling humanitarian situation in Gaza it is not suprising that many are. The Palestinian society does not need to feed you propoganda – the facts are shocking enough. like 90% of the population dependent on food handouts or 50% unemployment…
The conflict is clearly hugely complex with many dimensions yet you come to such damning judgements with "little knowledge"…. how did you get into Cambridge???
Dear PPser….
If you are "anti Israel" isn't this a judgment against 6 million, or so, people? Is that a generalisation? Racist even?
Personally, like most "pro Israel" advocates, I regard the plight of the Palestinians as awful and potentially avoidable.
If you believe there ought not to be a State of Israel (like Hamas the party of choice in Gaza) then how is it possible, in the Western tradition, to attempt dialogue, avoid conflict and build a consensus? It isn't.
I can't talk with you if you don't believe I do or ought to exist.
This is the problem. The answer is harder to find.
Surely the right path is to talk, not withdraw, debate and not debase.
good luck with your studies,
Greg Krieger
While I don't necessarily oppose the continued existence of Israel as a state, I have to take issue with your logic. You are conflating opposition to the existence of the state of israel with opposition to the existence of people who happen to be citizens of that state when you say "I can't talk with you if you don't believe I do or ought to exist."
And when you conflate being anti-Israel with being anti-Israeli-people – you may as well say that opposing the oppressive Chinese government makes you racist against Chinese people – or indeed that opposing the Hamas government of Gaza makes one racist against Palestinians.
Although I understand your perspective my rhetoric was intended to be illustrative.
Your example of China is wholly fallacious. It is a totalitarian undemocratic State. Israel is a parliamentary democracy that upholds the rule of law and separation of powers unlike any of its neighbours. Yet it and its citizens have to put up with suggestions and actions each day, that attempt to deny and destroy it unlike any other State in the world.
Jewish nationalism (whether regarded as good or bad) has been in existence for 3000 years. The earliest trace of Palestinian nationalism (Abu Lughod) was around 1926.
Rather than picking out flaws is it not better to attempt to talk and strive for peaceful answers to difficult questions. (See below: Hamas Charter)
Greg, are you asserting that because a state is a democracy, then to condemn its government is by extension a condemnation of its people and therefore racist? This is laughable.
If you have to be racist to harshly criticize the actions of an elected government then fine, under this absurd and stifling definition, I'm a bigot. A bigot against a great many nations, including my own.
Oh and by the way, I fail to see how the relatives ages of the involved parties' ridiculous and irrational national/ethnic chauvinisms are relevant to this discussion. Or indeed to any serious discussion.
you might want to be consulted about this:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=11876347…
Hamas charter: Articles 13 and 14. Both implicitly and explicitly deny the right of Israel to exist. Acknowledging the existence of a State, that although does not have clearly defined borders, has territory, control over that territory and a permanent population is not a difficult exercise, whether an informed public international lawyer or not. Acknowledgement and acceptance are obviously two different concepts.
A statistic I'd be interested to figure out in the future: how many "Tab" readers go on to read the Daily Mail once they've become fully fledged bigots?
Gordon Brown would also be interested, mainly because I wrote bigot.
Somehow I don't believe that CUSU is picking up the pieces from the Oslo Accords and handshakes on the White House lawn. Unfortunately on both sides there's a genuine lack of desire to see the other side and both armies of PalSoc, ISOC congregate on one side and JSoc on the other. How often do these two groups speak to each other? If PalSoc is committed to engaging the other side they need to take the great step (in what is in their power) to not invite people who encourage armed struggle or refute the claim of Israel to exist altogether in just the same way that JSoc need to acknowledge their desire to see an end to all the troubles and in just the same way that the Israeli government needs to be less provocative in building settlements in occupied territories. It's about bloody time both sides stopped wanting to gain cheap shots and actually put their own personal political aspirations, whether in the losers' refuge that is CUSU or the odd comment on the Comment Is Free section of the Guardian, aside and get serious about the issue. ISRAEL EXISTS. PALESTINE MUST EXIST. Now let's move on and CUSU maybe instead of having grand ideas of international diplomacy maybe you should sort out student loans and tuition fees. Or are you sending Chigbo to Iran to look for nuclear sites?
CUSU is simply the sum of the decisions made by JCR, MCR, faculty and autonomous campaign representatives. It's not some sort of conspiracy. If you've got an idea for a strong, effective campaign on fees, either come along to the Open Meeting tomorrow where the issue will be being discussed, or write a motion for CUSU Council Easter II proposing it. I can assure you that working on Israel-Palestine Week did not bring anything else CUSU was working on grinding to a halt. Whilst as you can see from my comment above, I do think we need to get our act together on fees, the NUS clearly think that 'Vote for Students' counts as doing that.
Palestine…that's in South America right? What's that got to do with Israel?
[...] Israel-Palestine Awareness Week Scrapped A CUSU sponsored joint Israel-Palestine awareness week was scrapped with hours to go, and replaced by an ‘Israeli-Apartheid’ week. [...]
Thank God CUSU Council voted against twinning Cambridge with the Islamic University of Gaza. I literally cannot believe that PalSoc and certain individuals tried to sneak that past everybody during exam term. The same creeps who occupied the Law Faculty last year… every normal Cambridge student will be glad to see them leave.
who gives a shit