AUJS at odds with Sydney uni students
The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) has criticised the University of Sydney’s Student Representative Council (SRC) for passing a “divisive and counterproductive” motion calling on the University to end all ties with the Technion.
The National Chairperson of AUJS, Andrew Goldberg, said that the resolution, passed this week through the SRC, represented “an attempt to force the extremist, anti-Israel Boycott-Divestment- Sanctions (BDS) policy onto the entire student body without a mandate and without any real debate among students on campus”. Goldberg, a recent student of the University of Sydney, was critical of the SRC leadership. “They have allowed a handful of unrepresentative ideologues to force one of their pet causes down the throats of students. One would expect that the University will not have a bar of any boycott.”
The campaign for an academic boycott of Israel has been rejected by both sides of Australian politics, including Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott.
AUJS National Political Affairs Director Dean Sherr questioned the motives of BDS campaigners: “Collaborative research between Australian and Israeli universities in the fields of science and medicine is of benefit to both countries and to the global community. This call for a boycott is immoral. The anti-Israel boycott campaign has rightly been ridiculed and rejected by mainstream Australians. Targeting chocolate shops, cancer researchers and pro-peace, pro-dialogue Israeli academics is as absurd as it is offensive to those genuinely affected by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
Sherr dismissed as “irresponsible nonsense” claims by the SRC that Technion academics are “implicated in war crimes,” saying, “Given that the combined research done by the Technion with the University of Sydney is not for military purposes, a boycott policy would be irresponsible. We would question the motivation behind it.”
According to Goldberg; “For decades Israel has been compelled by its hostile neighbours to fight for its very existence. No country faced with malevolent forces determined to wipe out its people would fail to use all of its capacities to defend itself. There is much scientific and technical research that can be used for military purposes, but if you are going to boycott universities who do such research, you would have to boycott most of the leading universities in the world, including Australia.”
“The SRC has let down the students it should be representing by indulging in empty posturing on foreign policy issues which they do not understand and have grossly oversimplified and by neglecting bread and butter issues that affect the day to day lives of students.”
AUJS calls for the SRC to rescind its motion and applauds the Technion for its outstanding recent contributions to the field of cancer research.
The Haifa-based Technion is the Israeli Institute of Technology
Have an open debate with them and ask them to provide evidence of Israeli war crimes and colonization. The AUJS can defend Israel and demolish the BDS arguments if they are correct in their position on supporting Israel.
There should indeed be an open debate, but the evidence is that the far left and the antisemitic pro-“Palestinian” supporters tned to present manufacturered “evidence” and to shout down their opponents. If by some chance a debate does occur – a debate that does not follow the lines of should the destruction of Israel be pursued by “resistance” (of the sort that has had 3 year old Adelle on life support for the past month) or by BDS – it should include should a 23rd mohammedan state be created and should “peace studies” be allowed in an institution of higher learning.
AUJS has been backing away from debates for years. The last I saw was between Ted lapkin and Michael Shaik in Canberra. Lapkin chose to smear and slander critics and interrupt Shaik constantly. Michael Shaik quietly demolished lapkin’s hasbara and the audience was very respectful to both speakers – a sizeble presence of Zionists. But there was no doubt that hasbara could not stand scrutiny in the face of evidence.
AUJS can invite the BDS camapaingers to a debate at a place and time of its chosing and negotiate the terms of the debate. All other excuses are covering up fear of exposure of hasbara untruths..
It casts doubt over the quality of education at the University of Sydney and the intelligence of the majority of their students if the students that they elected to represent them think that boycotting a university in Haifa (where there are many Palestinian students) will help stop the occupation of the territories.
I’m guessing it will also have just as insignificant of an impact on the majority extremist Palestinian leadership’s wish to get rid of the Jews in Israel (the most moderate would accept us as their guests, but certainly us “dogs and pigs” cannot be a sovereign nation in the midst of the ‘greatest religion’), and their continuous attacks on Jewish civilians from behind human shields. This chronic aggression is what causes the occupation to become more and more entrenched, but surely the most educated and popular students in Sydney understood that when they figured that their best course of action is to boycott academics in Haifa.
Shachar, your comments are confused and confusing.
Your comment that having a student body that recommends BDS is an indicator of their poor intellect is correct. The arrogance of those students matches thir ignorance.
Your other point about “occupation” is nonsense. A nation that has wrested control of its ancestral lands in a defensive war from its illegal occupier, cannot be regarded as being an occupier. The Arabs residing there are not wanted by Jordan, Kuwait or any brother nation and Jew don’t want them either. The Jewish state is willing to give some Jewish lands to those Arabs as long as Israel’s security is not imperilled i.e. the Arabs can have disarmed internal autonomy. Those Arabs on the other hand refuse to accept any terms which fall short of the destruction of the Jewish state and its humiliation as a dhimmi population of any who survive and any who are not expelled, considering that they generously will allow only those Jews to stay who were in that part of the Ottoman Empire before the first world war.
what!?!? not syria? not iran? not the taliban? but israel!?!? SRC are you an offshoot of hezbolla ?? crazy people