Sussex boycotts Israeli goods

Last Thursday 29th October, Sussex students voted in favour of a Student Union boycott of Israeli goods. Turn out at the referendum totalled 1038 students; 526 votes were cast for a boycott, 450 against. 26 votes were deemed invalid.

Simon Englert, a member of Friends of Palestine (PalSoc), beamed: “This is a historical victory for Sussex. Today we have become the first British university to boycott Israel.”

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Who’s the Orientalist?

The extent of some people’s arrogance, ignorance and shamelessness can indeed be revolting sometimes. That’s what I thought when I read the recent Badger article entitled ‘Balance it out!’. I would like to think that its author is simply naïve; only on that basis would I be prepared to excuse the things that were so erroneously alleged in that article.
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Double standards and legitimate criticism

Should there be freedom to criticise religion or does doing so automatically make it racism? Good question. Most of us are aware that people are sensitive to religious criticism to the extent that they will call it racism, and sometimes justifiably so. And it’s definitely fair to say that sometimes the line between criticism of a religion and ‘racism’ is easily crossed.
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Balance it out!

As an anti-war campaign, it would not make sense to support Hamas. Hamas of course believe a military resistance to be the only solution. As you know, for Hamas a state of war is a state of victory and every dead child a martyr.
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Freedom to criticise, or racism?

It seems that – one way or another – some people on this campus are intent on launching a sometimes overt, sometimes covert campaign against the Muslim members of our community. That is what I see in common between the attempt to ban Azzam Tamimi from speaking on campus after he was invited to do so by the Stop the War Coalition and the Palestine Society, the article in The Badger from four weeks ago telling us how Hamas is a horrible terrorist organisation and last week’s article in The Badger entitled ‘Freedom for criticism’.
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To answer your question: I would say freedom fighters

It is with a lot of pleasure that I read the Badger dated 2 February 2009. The front page run an article on the occupation of A2 in support of the people of Gaza and the comment pages were dominated by debate over issues raised by our action. What we (the students of the occupation) did during a week had clearly had an impact across the student community. Not only did we get 1200 signatures for a petition featuring the occupation’s demands, but we also triggered debate. In this spirit I welcome whatever criticisms have appeared in the pages of The Badger.
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Anti-war, not anti-Semitic

It is refreshing to see, in last week’s leading article, a report on the Sussex Occupation in which the writer has taken the time to talk to the occupiers and ask them why they are there.

The large-scale protest has been met with some alarmingly mis-informed articles in this fine paper, including some which spark the claim that because the occupiers heard from Azzam Tamimi, who is pro-Hamas, everyone in the room must also be pro-Hamas and pro-terrorism. Last week’s comment piece, ‘Freedom fighters or terrorists?’, suggested that the Palestine Society, in defending the right of Dr Tamimi to speak, was endorsing ‘a message of hatred’, which included not only pro-terrorism but also anti-Semitism.
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Freedom fighters or terrorists?

Considering the treatment they get on the Sussex campus, you’d think Hamas were Robin Hood and his band of merry men.

The event ‘Get Israel Out of Gaza’ attracted hundreds of students, many of whom wished simply to express their outrage at the huge loss of civilian life in the Gaza Strip as a result of bombing by Israel. The event was held as Israeli troops withdrew from the area. Speakers included Dr Azzam Tamimi, who declared in a 2004 interview that can still be seen on the BBC website that he supports suicide bombing in public places in Israel and would carry one out personally if he could. A year later, 444 civilians, including 80 children, had been killed in Israel as a result of terrorist attacks mostly carried out by Hamas. Read more

Speakers condone violence against civilians

Like so many people across the world and at this university I was appalled by the actions recently taken by the Israeli government in Gaza. I believed that it was my duty to defend the people of Gaza against what was an illegal and disgraceful bombardment. As a result I attended marches in my home town and decided to join the meeting held on Tuesday evening at the university.
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Pro-Palestinian students occupy lecture theatre after anti-war talk

Students occupied the Arts A2 lecture theatre in protest over the continuing Israeli military action in Gaza, following a speech from a controversial British-Palestinian academic that drew an audience of hundreds of students last Tuesday evening.
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