A candidate in the race to be president of the National Union of Students has criticised the organisation for “relentlessly banging on about Israel”.

Tom Harwood, a student at Durham University, told the JC: “It’s really quite questionable how the NUS has only ever passed boycott measures against one country – and it happens to be the Jewish state.”

Mr Harwood, who is not Jewish, noted that despite land disputes and human rights abuses in countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Syria, “the only one that the NUS seems to relentlessly bang on about is Israel.

“It just makes you wonder, what’s so different about Israel than all these other countries that they feel the need to go on about it?”

If he were elected, he said, he “wouldn’t want the NUS to be getting involved in foreign policy at all, one way or the other. I don’t think it’s NUS’s place to do it”.

“If you want to run a Palestinian liberation campaign – fine – but don’t pretend that you’re representing all the students when you do it.

“I think that the NUS needs to take a look at itself and realise that there is a problem — certain individuals need to realise they are part of that problem — before we can actually move forward and make campuses across the UK safe for Jewish students.”

The presidential election takes place at the NUS annual conference in Brighton next month.

Mr Harwood is joined as a candidate by Shakira Martin, a current NUS vice-president.

It is believed current president Malia Bouattia will stand for a second term.