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Project Elephant launches all-female short film
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est. 1988
The University of Bristol’s Independent Student Newspaper
Fortnightly 4th March 2019 Issue 336 Celebrating 30 years
‘This is not an anti-Israel motion’ Fireworks at SU AMM as hour long debate passes West Bank divestment motion
• Annual Member’s Meeting sees renewal of 2016 motion to divest from industries operating out of Israel’s West Bank. • The debate lasted over an hour and was hotly contested by attendees.
James Cleaver
Online News Editor
A
divided Annual Members’ Meeting narrowly voted for Bristol SU to lobby the University to divest from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The initial motion, which was later amended, aimed ‘to persuade the University against buying the products and services of companies with involvement in settler activity’.
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Proposed by Layla Assam and seconded by Mason Ammar, it called on Bristol to follow the example set by the University of Leeds in the hope that a boycott would make Israel’s occupation of the West Bank less economically viable. Assam spoke personally of her Palestinian heritage, urging the audience to think about what it would be like to grow up without freedom. The final results of a secret ballot were 128 in favour of the amended motion, 92 opposed, with 33 abstentions. In her proposing speech, Assam said she feels ‘grateful and privileged for education and opportunity’ but is ‘ashamed with the fact that my university has links to financial companies that support Israel, that facilitates the apartheid and the ongoing illegal occupation of my people’.
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She called on the members to ‘imagine a world where Palestinians as young as 10 years old are routinely taken from their homes at gunpoint in night-time raids by Israeli soldiers, with more and more illegal settlements being built each day’. She added: ‘UK universities remain deeply
‘Divesting from Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank’
128for 92against
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complicit with Israel’s apartheid regime through their investment and institutional links, and we as a group of students […] cannot be complacent.’ Nina Freedman, President of the Bristol Jewish Society, spoke in opposition to the motion. While insisting that she was not indifferent to the plight of the Palestinian people, she criticised the proposal for including the word ‘apartheid’ to describe Israel’s conduct. She claimed it was a ‘gross misuse’ of a term that ‘unnecessarily vilifies Israel and does an injustice to those who suffered in South African apartheid’. Mason Ammar supported the use of the word ‘apartheid’, arguing that the UN has used it in relation to the occupation and reaffirming that he feels ‘offended by an apartheid regime’. Continued on pages 4-5 ...