Opinion
Police must investigate NUS over possible crimes
The JC Leader 13 January 2023
January 12, 2023 09:05
1 min read
The JC Leader 13 January 2023
January 12, 2023 09:05There have been few more damning investigations into antisemitism in recent years than the independent report produced this week by Rebecca Tuck KC for the National Union of Students.
It reveals an organisation suffused with race hate in its attitude towards Jewish people at university.
The NUS is not just a “hostile environment” for Jews, it has repeatedly and consistently ignored and dismissed problems of antisemitism as a result of its stance over the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Jewish students, Ms Tuck writes, were “answerable for Israel, responsible to call out any antisemitism, seen to represent every single Jew in the student population, and stripped of any other characteristics”.
A number of actions must follow this report.
Most obviously, all its recommendations must be implemented immediately. These are not the NUS’s salvation; they are a basic first step. It may be that the NUS’s racism has so poisoned its DNA that there is no way back for the organisation.
Second, in the view of the JC, all previous officers of the NUS during the period covered by the report should be retrospectively stripped of their office titles, other than those who fought or were victims of this hostile environment for Jews.
And finally there must be a police investigation into possible criminality going back over the past decade, given the scale and the consistent pattern of racial hatred that appears to have been displayed.
For years, the Jewish community has been aware of the hotbed of antisemitism on campus. The time has come to take action.