Palestine and Israel supporters came to blows in front of the Students’ Union last week after a controversial speaker pulled out of a Union hosted event.
Israel Deputy Ambassador Talya Lador-Fresher was scheduled to speak at a Politics Society event last Thursday, but “postponed” her appearance following a barrage of criticism and threats of a protest by Action Palestine activists, allegedly because of security concerns.
Despite the cancellation of the talk, over 100 Action Palestine protesters gathered on the Union steps in the afternoon. “The Politics Society accepted the invite of the Deputy Ambassador, who has since cancelled the visit, or at least postponed it,” said one of the organisers. “It is still important to continue with the rally to highlight that Union executives let go ahead a talk that contravenes a motion that was passed at a General Meeting that was the largest in our history with 1,200 people attending.
“Manchester has a strong history in supporting Palestine and I think there is quite an overwhelming movement in support of Palestine. We can’t let the Israeli PR Machine win, we have to stand up against this.”
Last academic year, over 1,000 students attended General Meeting to vote on the ‘Gaza Crisis’ motion in support of Palestine. A part of the policy stipulates that UMSU joins the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that boycotts companies that support or benefit from the Israeli occupation.
The Deputy Ambassador was supposed to deliver a talk entitled ‘Hopes and Challenges in the Middle East’ hosted by the Politics Society in Academy 2. Action Palestine and other supporters strongly criticised the decision to allow the talk on Union premises in light of the declared solidarity with Palestine.
However despite the potential clash with Union policy, it is illegal to prevent a speaker from visiting the Union because of their politics. The 1986 Education Act, which governs Students’ Unions, stipulates that: “The use of premises is not denied to anyone because of their beliefs or politics.”
This conflict between the General Meeting policy and the law was a source of heated debate at an emergency Executive meeting the day before the protest and scheduled talk. At the meeting the Union Executive committee eventually agreed that allowing Lador-Fresher to speak at the Union contravenes policy, yet voted against cancelling the event.
Union General Secretary Gabriel Hassan explained the series of events leading up to the meeting, saying: “The Politics Society followed the Union procedure around visiting speakers and handed in the necessary forms on time two weeks before the event. The speaker was identified as controversial but in light of the University of Manchester’s Code of Practice on Freedom speech it was deemed that Deputy Israeli Ambassador should be allowed to speak.”
Explaining the Executive’s vote, Welfare Officer Vicky Thompson said: “This Union has a Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) policy that was democratically passed by a majority of hundreds in the wake of the Gaza massacre. Being part of the BDS movement not only means there shouldn’t be Israeli products in our shop; it means that no Israeli diplomats should be speaking in our Union.
“In a vote, the majority of the Executive agreed that permitting this meeting to go ahead would be a contravention of our policy. Then several of the same Exec members didn’t have enough courage in their convictions to vote to cancel the event. They backed down, sending out the dual message that democracy doesn’t matter and that if a meeting is kept quiet long enough, it can go ahead.
“This Union is supposedly controlled by its members and General Meetings are supposed to be our supreme policy making body. When hundreds of students make a democratic decision, the task of the Union’s Executive should be to uphold that decision, not to trample all over it.”
Fellow Executive member Oliver Worth, Humanities Faculty Officer, voted against both decisions. “The Executive’s decision to consider a speech by Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to be against union policy was racist, undemocratic, and highlighted an executive willing to drastically overstep their authority,” he said.
“I voted against this decision because I don’t believe in gagging someone’s right to speak based on their nationality. Efforts to prevent this speech are orchestrated by members of Action Palestine, an organisation happy to host terrorists, yet eager to prevent someone speaking for fear of students hearing a balanced view of a conflict they like to polarise to the maximum.”
Women’s Officer Hazel Kent said considering that three out of ten Union policies are about Palestine, she felt it was “against the will of the student population to have a representative of the Israeli government speaking, though this is my interpretation.
“I abstained from voting to cancel the talk because I couldn’t decide on the ‘right’ decision. However, here are my two conflicting trains of thought. Cancel: Logically, having voted that the talk would be against Union policy, the next step would be to cancel it. Don’t cancel: Two weeks ago I would have said, “move it to the University, due to our policy this should categorically not happen on Union premises.
“But…The Politics Society followed procedure; it’s the Union’s responsibility we weren’t discussing it until the day before. The possibility that some Jewish students on campus would feel under attack, or even be under attack if this was cancelled was brought up. And it would be illegal under the Education Act to cancel it.
“I couldn’t decide between the two choices, and so I abstained. I’m unsure whether that was the right decision – but given how I felt at the time, it was the only one I felt I could make.”
A statement from the Union Executive added that in future “the procedure for visiting speakers that may contravene Union policy should be reviewed.”
The talk by the Israeli Deputy Ambassador would not have been the only controversial one in recent weeks. The Islamic Society hosted a speaker who allegedly had links to Hamas on February 13, which attracted criticism from the Jewish Society.
In an interview with Student Direct: Mancunion, Deputy Ambassador Lador-Fresher said she was very disappointed to not be able to attend the talk, where she was going to speak about the current situation in the Middle East from an Israeli perspective.
“It was decided to postpone it due to the fact that there were many security concerns regarding the event. As I’m sure you’re well aware there were a lot of organisations happening both outside and inside the hall.
“The security was not so much concerned with the protesters outside, but also with the protesters inside. And again, I have been shouted at before and it is unpleasant and inconvenient, but that was not the issue at all. There were serious concerns about physical abuse.”
She added that freedom of information, speech and discussion were the very cornerstones of academia, and that academic boycotts were leaving Israel out of “everything that academia stands for.”
“This trying to silence Israeli voices, it’s absolutely disturbing.”
Members of the Jewish society organised their own rally after the talk’s cancellation, confronting the Action Palestine protesters on the Union steps.
One Jewish Society protester said: “Being critical of Israel is one thing, but denying that the state as a whole should exist is another. You can criticize Israel without calling it illegitimate. We wanted to make the point that Union policy does not represent us. It was intimidation that meant that the speaker couldn’t come today. Action Palestine’s tactics are that they scare. It’s not OK that a speaker, welcomed by a society, couldn’t come because of intimidation.”
Jamil Keating, a 16-year-old local high school student and member of Action Palestine’s protest, was at the front as the two opposing sides converged. Each side refused to stop pushing and tension grew with some protestors from both sides forced to climb over the railings to avoid injury.
Keating said: “The Deputy Israeli Ambassador decided not to come, so we were really happy. The union here have a really good policy of speaking out against repression like they did with South Africa, and like they are [doing] with Israel and Palestine. The speaker decided not to come, so we decided to make the protest a symbolic one, rather than a tactical one, and try and represent the plight of the Palestinian people. The protest was enjoyable; there was music and chanting. And then from across the road we see a Zionist group assembling. We have people who support our protest who are Israeli, but support the Palestinian people. They called us anti-Semitic. We ignored them, but they came up the stairs. We linked arms, and we said ‘This union has taken a policy against the Israeli government since they have been proven to be war criminals.’
“But it started to get aggressive. There was pushing, I was kneed in the crotch. The police were pulling people apart. It is inevitably going to happen when you have two groups of people with opposing ideological and political ideas.”
Eventually the protesters were herded inside the Students’ Union by police and security staff, where they continued confronting each other. Protesters from both sides were standing their ground in the foyer, shouting paroles and chanting.
“They were ridiculous protests and became not about politics, but about who could shout louder,” said second year Politics and History student Dan Berkeley. “That was the problem with the lack of debate in the first place. It was just aggressive people shouting. I’ve never been able to hear their views. All I’m told is, ‘I should be ashamed’ and ‘I’m scum’ and that ‘I’m a murderer’. They don’t know my views and frankly, I don’t know theirs. They never want to sit down and speak. They never want to debate. It’s not politics.”
Patrick Cowling, a History student and member of Action Palestine’s protest added: “It got pointless towards the end. We had a rally here for solidarity to the Palestinians. The pro-Israelis came and it became who could shout who down. We are here for the Palestinians. They are here to support their apartheid racist government, who are actively pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing.”
However, the protests also sparked genuine debate between members of the two groups. First year student Jacob Rothschild commented: “I’m not a radical person. We’re all grown up students, why not be cool with each other and let everyone speak? I don’t see the point, these people have the same right to speak as [Lador-Fresher]. There are many ways of engaging with each other.”
The Politics Society, who were to host the talk was largely sidelined during the protest. In a statement given to Student Direct: Mancunion, they said:
“The Politics Society regrets the non-attendance of the Deputy Israeli Ambassador due to heightened security risks. The Politics Society always strives to represent the broad medium of views in its capacity as a neutral vehicle of political opinion. The right to protest is something to be cherished, it is just a shame the cost is what would certainly have been an engaging and interesting event.”
The cancellation of the talk coincided with the Israeli Ambassador being summoned by the Foreign Office following the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Several suspects had been travelling with fake British passports. However, asked about links between the cancellation of the Manchester talk and Foreign Office summon, Lador-Fresher replied “absolutely not,” maintaining the reason was security.
Greater Manchester Police had a presence at the protest, but reported no incidents and no arrested were made.
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