Manchester student union objects to Jewish students request for union to not glorify terrorism - The Jewish Chronicle

Manchester University’s Student Union has objected to calls from Jewish students to disavow violent resistance in a motion expressing solidarity with Palestinians.

The student union objected to a total of nine amendments put forward by Jewish students on Wednesday, including one that would have specified that any armed resistance should not target civilians and one that would recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

Other amendments called for Hamas to release the 59 hostages it still holds captive and for the union to refrain from “glorifying” violence against Israeli civilians, including on October 7.

In a statement to the JC about the SU’s original solidarity motion, Manchester University said they considered “aspects of this motion to be wholly unacceptable,” and it has raised “serious concerns with the students’ union regarding its wording, particularly where it risks undermining the principles of equality, safety, and wellbeing.”

The university said student union motions are independent of the administration and it is not obligated to implement them.

Many of the non-Jewish students at the union meeting where the original motion was proposed were masked and wore keffiyehs to conceal their identities. When a Jewish student voiced their concern to a meeting organiser that the masks and keffiyehs were creating a “hostile and unwelcoming” environment, the organiser declined to request that they be removed or to take any action at all.

A list of amendments to Manchester University student union's 'Solidarity with Palestine' motion - all of which were rejected[Missing Credit]

A Jewish student present for the meeting said they were “shocked” when the majority of the union objected to every single motion they put forward. In response, some Jewish students held a silent protest outside the building where the meeting took place, holding pictures of Ariel and Kfir Bibas with the words “murdered by armed resistance”.

Manchester University students hold images of the Bibas children[Missing Credit]

The 2000-word “Solidarity with Palestine” motion, which was proposed last year by a student from the university’s Friends of Palestine group is now under consideration by the SU and will now undergo a 7-day period of voting by students. The document fails to mention Hamas even once but quotes numerous figures provided by the terrorist group.

Manchester University student union members wear masks and keffiyehs while it deliberates a motion on 'Solidarity with Palestine'[Missing Credit]

The motion also accuses Israel “in its entirety” of being “an apartheid settler-colonial state committing ongoing genocide against Palestinians.”

It recognises “as an occupied nation, the people of Palestine have the right to armed resistance under international law.”

“On the other hand,” the motion reads, “the right to national self-defence does not extend to occupying nations in the land they are occupying.”

It argues that a two-state solution has become “impossible” due to the “continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine” and advocates for a “single, free, multi-faith Palestinian state”.

In December last year, Manchester University student union adopted a BDS motion with upwards of 90 per cent of students voting in favour.

The student union has been approached for comment.