UGM Vote Hangs on Use of Term ‘Apartheid’

Well the UGM hasn’t seen anything like this since your blogger first arrived at the LSE. An over-full audience at the Old Theater listened to speakers support and take on a very controversial motion calling the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory “apartheid” and asking for the SU, as well as the school itself, to divest from Israeli firms. Nobody seemed to question that there is a repressive Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, but the fate of the motion lies on the use of contentious terms like ‘apartheid’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the language of the motion itself, as well as an allegation that it is unbalanced in not recognizing and decrying the actions of Palestinian militants against Israel as well as Israeli actions against Palestinians.

The huge audience and the buzz for the motion allowed Education and Welfare officer Ruhana Ali to  quickly apologize for the letter to the Guardian that she had signed, with General Secretary Fadhil Bakeer-Markar acknowledging, after being pressed, that it had been ‘a mistake’ to include references to their role as officers within the Students Union in a letter that endorsed Ken Livingstone’s re-election for mayor. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. Most of the students present, no doubt, had no idea what they were referring to.

The debate quickly moved on to the motion at hand, and there were also considerable complaints that students were being excluded from the Old Theater, which was full to capacity. The SU officers said that they couldn’t do anything about the maximum number of students to be admitted into the room, and that they had delivered ballots to students who were stuck outside if they wanted to vote despite being unable to hear all of the deliberations. Another unusual element was the presence of paper ballots, which was said by one member of the Union to be unprecedented in voting on a motion at the UGM. The reason for ballots, the Union was told, was to allow members to cast their votes anonymously on this contentious issue.

To summarize the speeches for and against the motion, those in favor accused Israel of committing “systemic human rights abuses” and cited ample evidence from various international aid agencies, non-profit organizations and United Nations reports. They referred to the historic stand that the LSESU took against apartheid in South Africa and made numerous allusions comparing circumstances in Palestine with apartheid-era South Africa. One of the speakers for the motion said “I see it [the Israeli occupation] as worse than what happened in South Africa.” The motion was described as being a concrete act that was within the means of the SU to register its condemnation and attempt to influence the situation.

For the opposition to the motion, which was led by PuLSE station manger Dan Dolan, the argument was not that the Israeli occupation of Palestine was justified (indeed, they too recognized the plight of Palestinians), but that the motion used inflammatory language like apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and that it failed to include any references towards seeking peace or reconciliation between the two. “This is not a reasonable motion,” Dolan said, “it will help the most extreme elements in Israel while marginalizing the more liberal ones.”

Both the speakers for and against the motion received considerable applause, and the collected Union members had little patience for interlopers who attempted to interrupt or shout at the speakers as they spoke. It was certainly not clear based on the audience reactions which side had more support, and this blogger was told that the vote will be tallied today. The decision will be officially announced at the next UGM, although one would have to expect that the outcome will be known before then. Whatever the outcome, todays UGM certainly re-energized the student population, and it will be interesting to see what attendance at next week’s session will be like.