BDS: Melbourne University students endorse boycott campaign

BDS: Melbourne University students endorse boycott campaign (Middle East Monitor,
16/8/2022)

Students at Melbourne University passed a motion yesterday in favour
of endorsing the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
campaign. The Student Union at the university (UMSU) passed the
motion by 13 votes to 3, with one abstention.
“The UMSU has decided to adopt a number of stances and actions,
against the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” said the union.
“UMSU supports the self-determination of the Palestinian people and
their right to engage in self-defence against their occupiers.” The use of

Zionism “to justify the illegal occupation of Palestine,” UMSU added, “is
racist and colonial.”
The resolution comes after the approval of an earlier version in May,
which was revoked after a law student at the university threatened to
sue the union for violating the State of Victoria’s Racial and Religious
Tolerance Act. The union then said that it would bring an amended
version of the resolution to be voted on. “The legitimisation of the
Israeli state is the legitimisation of Palestinian oppression,” it said.
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza, the
resolution added, “is built on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,
intending to forcefully expel Palestinians and massacre those who
remain, in order to grow the state of Israel.”
In response, leading Zionist and Jewish organisations in Australia have
condemned the resolution. A joint statement accused it of being
“imbued with racism and its language drips with venomous hatred. It is
shocking to see such a worldview so openly displayed at one of the
world’s best universities, a place where the drive to understand
complexity is supposed to be celebrated.”
The statement, which incorrectly conflates criticism of Zionism and the
Zionist state of Israel with unacceptable anti-Jewish racism, was issued
in the name of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, the
Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Zionist Federation of
Australia, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, and Zionism
Victoria.
“Motions like this do nothing for Palestinians,” they concluded, “but
they make life on campus more dangerous for Jews.”