Campus Anti-Semitism in Britain
BREINDEL, ERIC
THE END OF THE AFFAIR? Campus Anti-Semitism Britain BY ERIC M. BREINDEL London For more than a year, the National Union of Students (NUS) here seemed dead set on living up to the old adage,...
...The South African racists, the Zionists and fascists share this belief in common...
...Representatives of those groups were, in addition, to be prevented from speaking in all forums on college campuses "by whatever means necessary (including disruption of the meeting...
...But even if she is successful, the anti-Semitic stigma now attached to the NUS will not soon disappear...
...Nor have recent developments in the Middle East...
...In late June, with the covert backing of the NUS executive, the York expulsion was reversed...
...What about the scheduled visit of a rabbi due to lecture on the relationship between Judaism and Zionism...
...He warned that the governing body of the University would take action against the union if the Jewish society was not reinstated...
...The entire controversy involved more than a simple matter of principle, it should be stressed, because British student unions are able to control campus events to an extraordinary degree...
...The charge was not, by standards previously set, a difficult one to prove: The society had, for one thing, sponsored Israeli speakers...
...Each professes to be the Chosen People...
...Then, in November 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed its resolution equating Zionism with racism...
...quite the contrary, Sadat's pilgrimage to Jerusalem and its aftermath have proved disastrous for an anti-Israel crusade...
...Their powers are recognized by administrators, faculty and students alike to be broad indeed, and the NUS' stature as a national force to be reckoned with is a given in British political life...
...The 43-count indictment declared: "The essence of racism is the mythical belief in race superiority...
...About a month after the Salford furor had died down, the student union at the University of York decided to expel the campus Jewish society from its ranks...
...Still, the steam seems to have gone out of the anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish campaign...
...The NUS executive board (dominated by the "Broad Left"—Communist party members, Trotskyists, Maoists and assorted other factionalists), meanwhile, remained silent...
...it, in turn, swiftly demanded a straightforward response from the NUS executive...
...A rebuke issued to Clarke late last March spoke up for minority rights in extraordinarily obtuse language...
...Praise from a band of neofascists didn't quite conform with the NUS' self-image...
...Campus Anti-Semitism Britain BY ERIC M. BREINDEL London For more than a year, the National Union of Students (NUS) here seemed dead set on living up to the old adage, "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools...
...The NUS leadership suddenly found itself in a dilemma...
...A sudden concern for the principle of local autonomy had conveniently emerged...
...A corollary was adopted stating that any campus union discriminating against a member group on grounds of "race, creed or religion" would be suspended from the national union...
...Not too surprisingly, it had no effect: The rabbi was still denied permission to lecture...
...The request was denied...
...The nationwide fees strike in 1976 was but one recent demonstration of NUS muscle...
...Some months following the Salford indictment, the student union there sponsored a celebration of Palestine Week...
...January 16, 1978 Eric M. Breindel is a student at the London School of Economics...
...The Jewish society at Salford University—like all campus organizations, a recipient of funds from the local student union— suddenly came under fire...
...At Swansea University, where an editorial warning of the "Zionist plot to conquer the world" ran in the NUS-funded student newspaper, the local union passed a resolution calling for a "total victory to the PLO...
...Enough, it decided, was enough...
...anti-Zionism, after all, was hardly a controversial position, even if there was something slightly disconcerting about barring all Israelis from speaking...
...The campaign against Jewish groups had won the NUS a rather interesting ally—the National Front...
...Slowly, the national leadership began stirring from its lethargy...
...British NUS leaders, particularly the Communists, seemed wary of the new application this element of their membership had found for the 1974 resolution...
...Moreover, NUS President Sue Slip-man appears determined to end the problem in April once and for all...
...And so at the December NUS national conference in Blackpool, with the urging of the executive, the troublesome 1974 resolution was overturned in its entirety...
...In December, though, it finally came to terms with the fact that what started out as no more than a de rigueur anti-Zionist campaign had gotten out of hand...
...With the 1974 NUS resolution serving as legal justification, the campaign was a huge success...
...at the same time, a statement was issued attacking the University administration's attempt to intervene in a student union affair...
...And the national office saw no particular reason to intervene...
...On the other hand, it was true, the York decision was looking more and more like overt anti-Semitism...
...The tragicomic sequence of events began in April 1974, when the NUS rank and file—local student unions at British universities—adopted a resolution barring "openly racist and fascist" organizations from receiving any NUS assistance, financial or otherwise...
...that may be difficult, since the executive could only muster 55 per cent in support of the repeal...
...On October 29, the group was indicted as Zionist in character and was stricken from the Salford union's register...
...But any hopes some within the NUS might have had that local unions would take a lesson from the York and Salford episodes and cease discriminating against Jewish groups were dashed at the very start of the fall term...
...Actually, the impetus for the anti-Zionist crusade came largely from North American, Third-World and Arab students (15,000 Arabs study at British universities...
...It would be all right" he said, "to speak about the difference between the two, but not about the links...
...For the student union at the University of London's world-renowned School of Oriental and African Studies (soas), a center for Middle East scholars as well as Africanists, cut off all funds to the soas Israel society, the School's sole Jewish organization...
...no counterpart to them has ever existed in the United States...
...Toward the end of 1976, the campaign took a new turn...
...Neither organization can afford such a decline in prestige, and Slipman is therefore expected to make every effort to round up that two-thirds by April...
...But in the light of the court ruling in Salford, the York administration, in the person of the University's vice-chancellor, decided to step in...
...The president of the Salford student union, Charles Clarke, was a bit troubled by that one...
...Eleven campus unions passed resolutions calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, and Israeli speakers— among them the ambassador to Great Britain—were hooted off college platforms...
...Eventually, however, he was able to conjure up a rather neat party line...
...The same equation was applied: Racism equals Zionism equals Jews...
...The Salford Jewish Society eventually went to court, received a favorable ruling, and the University administration offered the speaker use of an auditorium...
...An active Communist party member, Slipman is convinced that further upheavals like those at Salford, York and soas can merely serve to damage the NUS' image and, by extension, the party's...
...Support, albeit unwelcome, from a party seeking to deport nonwhites certainly did not help the cause...
...Such interference in union affairs could not be tolerated...
...The Jewish society presented this Solomon-like ruling to its umbrella organization, the Union of Jewish Students...
...The far-Right party had begun distributing anti-Semitic literature that vigorously applauded the York and Salford unions' stands...
...This prompted the now-unrecognized Jewish society to apply to the union for permission to hold an Israel Week...
...The unfortunate publicity generated by the soas union's move was compounded by another development...
...Summer vacation came and the brewing controversy was briefly laid to rest...
...But they were faced with a highly-organized drive led by two strong groups, the British Anti-Zionist Organization (bazo) and the General Union of Palestinian Students (gups...
...this was interpreted by various local unions as a signal to start pressing for the exclusion of Zionist speakers...
...The Blackpool decisions must be confirmed by a two-thirds majority at the next national conference in April before they enter into effect...
Vol. 61 • January 1978 • No. 2
