Defiance triumphs at Sydney Uni

The Sydney University Muslim Students Association made a telling admission on Friday. Its defiance of university orders to vacate its protest zone, after almost two months, it said, “worked in our favour across many fronts, most particularly being the catalyst for the negotiations with the uni”.

In return for closing their campus encampment peacefully, members of the Muslim Students Association were rewarded with measures including disclosure of the university’s defence- and security-related research activities and disclosing its investments in defence- and security-related industries.

Elated members of the association said the university had also agreed to help rebuild tertiary education in Palestine, add increased attention to Islamophobia and to develop an exchange program titled “experience Palestine”. Background information from the university said the continuation of partnerships with defence and security industries to conduct research in the interests of Australia’s national security would not be affected by the agreement. “We are not cutting ties with Israel or Israeli universities or Israeli companies,” it said.

The agreement has angered Jewish groups, Noah Yim reported. NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott and the university “have hideously capitulated and done a deal with a group dominated by Hizb ut-Tahrir – an organisation proscribed as a terrorist organisation in much of the world including the UK”. The university had negotiated with only one side, he said, ignored Jewish requests for talks and sought to bury the story on a Friday night (the Jewish Shabbat), and allowed the protesters to first announce the deal.

A Sydney University statement said “our campuses must be welcoming and safe for all our community, including our Jewish and Muslim students … our focus … has been to de-escalate tensions – not fuel them”. The agreement has done the opposite. Mr Ossip said no amount of “mealy-mouthed, proforma spin” should distract from “the utter shame of the university’s behaviour or the pathetic terms they have agreed to”.

Jewish leaders have called on Anthony Albanese to designate HUT a terrorist organisation. In a letter, Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler and chief executive Alon Cassuto said extremists such as HUT were “working to destroy social cohesion”.