The National Union of Students (NUS) unanimously voted to stand in solidarity with Palestine at its 2023 National Conference.
One hundred and fifty-six delegates, representing 23 university campuses across Australia, supported a bloc of five motions on December 12.
These include publishing a statement about Palestine, freeing Layan Kayed and all Palestinian political prisoners, condemning the Israeli government’s destruction of human rights and standing against Islamophobia.
The NUS has since posted a media release confirming their public support, with a particular emphasis on resisting the “second Nakba” currently taking place in Gaza.
Mover Cherish Kuehlmann from Socialist Alternative at the University of NSW told Honi about why she supported the bloc of motions: “We’ve seen indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools, UN centres. There is a siege and blockade on essential medication, food and water — Gaza has been turned to rubble.”
Speaking about the power of NUS, Kuehlmann said: “Student unions need to take a stand against genocide, apartheid and oppression. That’s why I moved this motion.”
University of Sydney’s 2023 Education Officer Ishbel Dunsmore, who worked within Grassroots to ensure the bloc of motions was supported by Unity and National Labor Students, said that achieving a free Palestine “requires heeding the call from Palestinian trade unionists to internationally mobilise [unionists] to end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes, most urgently to end the arming of Israel”.
A Palestinian activist at the conference noted that NUS’ “support of an immediate ceasefire in Palestine, the release of Palestinian political prisoners, support for the BDS movement, including a designation that NUS is now an Apartheid-Free Zone, condemning Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, and calling for a National Day of Action for Palestine” is “a historic moment”.
In particular, they said it shows “there is a growing divergence between Labor and Labor Youth on the topic of Palestine”.
A member of the anti-Zionist, anti-colonial Tzedek Collective also present at the conference commented that “as a Jewish descendent of Holocaust survivors”, it was “an honour and a mitzvah to be a part of writing one of these motions that commits the NUS to making Australian university campuses apartheid free zones.”
He added that this historic motion “also commits the NUS to recognise that Zionism is not the same thing as Judaism, and thus critiquing Zionism of its violent nature is not antisemitic.”
Western Australian Independent students Melanie and Amira spoke to Honi about how their bloc of motions in support of Palestine failed to gain unanimous support from the NUS.
They said Unity had told them “they had a problem with the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ and the term ‘genocide’” in motions 2.7 and 11.14.
As well as being “basic and descriptive terms to explain what is happening in Palestine”, Melanie and Amira also pointed out that the term “genocide” features in Unity’s motion in the Ethnocultural chapter.
Member of Students For Palestine Jasmine Al-Rawi echoed these sentiments, stating that it “is a really good step that the NUS has adopted a pro-Palestine position”, but that it “is also important to continue fighting and actually put these motions into action”.
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[This article was first published at Honi Soit. Simone Maddison is a member of USYD Grassroots.]