Students vote to condemn Israel after heated UGM

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15th Jan 2009
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Students have voted to condemn Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, after debating a controversial motion on the issue in the Union General Meeting this afternoon.
The Old Theatre filled to capacity within minutes of the opening of the meeting, as supporters of both sides of the conflict filed in for the debate.
The motion called on the LSE Students’ Union to condemn Israel’s campaign, and for the Union’s sabbatical officers to press the School to issue a statement condemning the invasion.
It also called for the statement of condemnation to include a recommendation that Britain push to suspend current EU trade talks with Israel, and to press for the British ambassador to Israel to be recalled.
Two hundred and nineteen students voted in favour of the proposals, with 154 against.
Emotions ran high in the room during the debate. Waves of boos and applause greeted the speakers for and against the motion as they took the stage. School security staff were deployed in the wings of the Old Theatre, and a hand-stamping system was used to regulate voting, which was held in the Quad.
Seph Brown, the Students’ Union’s Anti-Racism Officer and the first speaker for the motion, attacked “the futility and hypocrisy of Israeli actions” in his speech.
“There is one way to disempower moderates, and that is to use the most extreme violence in this conflict in forty years,” he said.
Brown said that he had engaged in constructive debate with the Israeli society last term, but that “there comes a point where we need to condemn.”
“This motion in no way condemns Israeli students, Jewish students or Judaism,” said Mira Hammad, the second speaker in favour of the motion. The Israeli army’s response to Hamas had been disproportionate, she said. “If you really want peace, then this motion is the better way forward than anything else we could say,” Hammad added.
A member of the Israeli society was the first to speak against the motion, and directed his comments at Brown. “Why is your anti-racism officer alienating me because I relate to Israel?”, he asked students.
“Hamas have genocidal aims. This motion seeks to wholly demonise Israel,” he added.
The second speaker against the motion said she was speaking for students who were neither pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, who were concerned that debating the Gaza war would prevent discussion on other issues that affected students.
The Students’ Union was not the right body to pass judgement on such complex issues, she said. The speaker said she was “shocked” that the Union’s anti-racism officer was proposing “such a biased and extreme motion.”
Subsequent questions from the floor to speakers were mostly directed to Brown and focused on his position as anti-racism officer.
Brown was also asked why the motion did not condemn Hamas alongside Israel. He replied that the root cause of the conflict was Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
“Where’s your Hamas scarf?” a student shouted out from the floor.
Students voted in the Quad after the debate ended. The results of the vote were released this evening.

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  • mcghee

    By Michael J. McGhee
    LSE Student
    A lot of ex-military people are a bit perplexed by the current situation in Gaza. Under the international rules of war military personnel are required to wear the uniform and insignia of the country they represent. This rule was drafted in Geneva so that noncombatants (civilians) would not be mistaken for soldiers. Hamas seems to have purposefully ignored this rule thereby putting thousands of civilian noncombatants at risk. Granted, Palestine is not nor has it ever been a nation-state and is therefore not a signature to the Geneva Convention. However, Palestine has aspirations of one day obtaining statehood and should therefore try to act like one. Long before the Geneva Convention and even before my country (USA) was a nation-state it practiced this simple rule; wearing the uniform of the country in time of war.
    Hamas uses the modus operandi of setting off rocket or missile attacks while in civilian clothing or disguise and then hiding amongst the civilian population. The civilian population quarters, harbors, aids and comforts Hamas irregulars thus making their own situation more perilous. Civilians quartering, harboring, aiding, and comforting irregular troops become, themselves, irregular troops.
    A solution to this problem and dilemma is for Hamas to wear uniforms like the Israeli and American armies. They should also reject aid from the civilian noncombatants in their field of operations. Further, during combat operations, they should move all noncombatants to a designated United Nations noncombatant zones and not store any interments of war in that zone. These simple actions would save many lives of women, children, and old people.
    In the history of warfare, the good-guy is usually not afraid of wearing the uniform and insignia of his/her country. The victorious hero is not a coward that runs in amongst the civilians – putting all of them at risk – the hero is the person carrying his/her countries standard – like the flags on Israeli and American tanks.
    I believe Hamas is directly, ultimately, and utterly responsible for any and all civilian noncombatant deaths that were a result of refusing to wear the uniform and insignia of their country in violation of the international rules of war. They are further responsible for hiding amongst civilian populations after committing acts of war.
    “They come to you disguised as sheep, but in their hearts they are vicious wolves. You will know them by what they produce. People don’t pick grapes from thorn-bushes or figs from thistles, do they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.” (Jesus of Nazareth, 1st century philosopher)
    On the issue of peace, the Palestinian people must have known that no normal relations could exist with Israel if they elected a terrorist organization as their representatives. Hamas is and was listed by the United Kingdom, United States, and Israel as a terrorist organization. Naturally, Israel doesn’t have to enter into peace negotiations with such a group and is well within her rights to embargo state sponsored terrorism and terrorist groups either democratically elected or imposed. If the Palestinian people truly want peace I suggest they consult the US Department of State and the UK Foreign Ministry to make sure their future elected officials are not criminal terrorist groups. This will insure that Israel is dealing with an honest peace partners and brokers and that talks can begin without treat or coercion.
    “Love thy neighbor as thy self” (Jesus of Nazareth, 1st century philosopher)
    Formula for success:
    First, don’t elect terrorist groups to represent you – then you won’t be embargoed. Second, don’t shoot rockets and missiles at your neighbor -then you won’t be invaded.

  • mcghee

    By Michael J. McGhee
    LSE Student
    A lot of ex-military people are a bit perplexed by the current situation in Gaza. Under the international rules of war military personnel are required to wear the uniform and insignia of the country they represent. This rule was drafted in Geneva so that noncombatants (civilians) would not be mistaken for soldiers. Hamas seems to have purposefully ignored this rule thereby putting thousands of civilian noncombatants at risk. Granted, Palestine is not nor has it ever been a nation-state and is therefore not a signature to the Geneva Convention. However, Palestine has aspirations of one day obtaining statehood and should therefore try to act like one. Long before the Geneva Convention and even before my country (USA) was a nation-state it practiced this simple rule; wearing the uniform of the country in time of war.
    Hamas uses the modus operandi of setting off rocket or missile attacks while in civilian clothing or disguise and then hiding amongst the civilian population. The civilian population quarters, harbors, aids and comforts Hamas irregulars thus making their own situation more perilous. Civilians quartering, harboring, aiding, and comforting irregular troops become, themselves, irregular troops.
    A solution to this problem and dilemma is for Hamas to wear uniforms like the Israeli and American armies. They should also reject aid from the civilian noncombatants in their field of operations. Further, during combat operations, they should move all noncombatants to a designated United Nations noncombatant zones and not store any interments of war in that zone. These simple actions would save many lives of women, children, and old people.
    In the history of warfare, the good-guy is usually not afraid of wearing the uniform and insignia of his/her country. The victorious hero is not a coward that runs in amongst the civilians – putting all of them at risk – the hero is the person carrying his/her countries standard – like the flags on Israeli and American tanks.
    I believe Hamas is directly, ultimately, and utterly responsible for any and all civilian noncombatant deaths that were a result of refusing to wear the uniform and insignia of their country in violation of the international rules of war. They are further responsible for hiding amongst civilian populations after committing acts of war.
    “They come to you disguised as sheep, but in their hearts they are vicious wolves. You will know them by what they produce. People don’t pick grapes from thorn-bushes or figs from thistles, do they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.” (Jesus of Nazareth, 1st century philosopher)
    On the issue of peace, the Palestinian people must have known that no normal relations could exist with Israel if they elected a terrorist organization as their representatives. Hamas is and was listed by the United Kingdom, United States, and Israel as a terrorist organization. Naturally, Israel doesn’t have to enter into peace negotiations with such a group and is well within her rights to embargo state sponsored terrorism and terrorist groups either democratically elected or imposed. If the Palestinian people truly want peace I suggest they consult the US Department of State and the UK Foreign Ministry to make sure their future elected officials are not criminal terrorist groups. This will insure that Israel is dealing with an honest peace partners and brokers and that talks can begin without treat or coercion.
    “Love thy neighbor as thy self” (Jesus of Nazareth, 1st century philosopher)
    Formula for success:
    First, don’t elect terrorist groups to represent you – then you won’t be embargoed. Second, don’t shoot rockets and missiles at your neighbor -then you won’t be invaded.

  • journeyman

    Letter From an Ex-Left Wing 1968,Progressive,Liberal.
    George Orwell,paradoxically hero of the left,was no armchair phoney.He spent time as a hobo,took a bullet in the neck in the Spanish civil war,and roughed it with the lower classes.Known for his novels 1984 and Animal Farm,but his critical essays should be required reading,as they are as relevant today as they were then.He had this to say about the people I refer to as the “phoney left”.In 1939.
    “It seems the Left has a distain and detachment for ordinary people. They have a lack of patriotism that is manifest in anti-British and anti-American sentiments,a denial of the magnitude of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.they exaggerate the effect of wartime measures on civil liberties.Their pacifist and defeatist mentality places facism and communism on the same moral plain as democracy.They display an emotional shallowness of people who live in a world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality.
    In the last twenty years,western civilization has educated him in skeptisism,while anchoring him in the privileged classes.
    He is a young man,living on an allowance from a father he hates. He is ashamed of his own nationality and sniggers at every English institution.
    The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point.But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists,whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism.Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other,but if one looks closely at the writing of the intellectual pacifists,one finds they do not buy any means expess impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States.”( e.g.Kim Philby )
    As a young college student in the sixties,I noticed the same phenomena.An admiration for the U.S.S.R.,Mao,s China,Castro,s Cuba and just about any non-democratic totalitarian everybody-wears-the-same-grey-overalls utopia they could find.We felt revolutionary,flattered
    ourselves as being the movement that would topple the evils of capitalism.
    We felt special,we felt exclusive,we felt white,left wing,post colonial,liberal,progressive guilt.We talked in parrot fashion and agreed in lock step with each other.Anybody who disagreed was banished to the far reaches of right-wing,”you,re straight man”,censorship.
    Dissent was dealt with swiftly (left wing Mc,Carthy-Inquisition style.
    All the worlds problems were the sum and total result of the Rebulican,Conservative,Zionist plot.I was anti-Vietnam then,as I am now,but unlike many others,I can drink tea with one hand and kill flies with the other.In other words I can be critical of the Bush-Neo.Con Iraq strategy and just as critical of Islamic-Religio,Facism and the immense demographic and ideological threat to European society.

  • journeyman

    Letter From an Ex-Left Wing 1968,Progressive,Liberal.
    George Orwell,paradoxically hero of the left,was no armchair phoney.He spent time as a hobo,took a bullet in the neck in the Spanish civil war,and roughed it with the lower classes.Known for his novels 1984 and Animal Farm,but his critical essays should be required reading,as they are as relevant today as they were then.He had this to say about the people I refer to as the “phoney left”.In 1939.
    “It seems the Left has a distain and detachment for ordinary people. They have a lack of patriotism that is manifest in anti-British and anti-American sentiments,a denial of the magnitude of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.they exaggerate the effect of wartime measures on civil liberties.Their pacifist and defeatist mentality places facism and communism on the same moral plain as democracy.They display an emotional shallowness of people who live in a world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality.
    In the last twenty years,western civilization has educated him in skeptisism,while anchoring him in the privileged classes.
    He is a young man,living on an allowance from a father he hates. He is ashamed of his own nationality and sniggers at every English institution.
    The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point.But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists,whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism.Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other,but if one looks closely at the writing of the intellectual pacifists,one finds they do not buy any means expess impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States.”( e.g.Kim Philby )
    As a young college student in the sixties,I noticed the same phenomena.An admiration for the U.S.S.R.,Mao,s China,Castro,s Cuba and just about any non-democratic totalitarian everybody-wears-the-same-grey-overalls utopia they could find.We felt revolutionary,flattered
    ourselves as being the movement that would topple the evils of capitalism.
    We felt special,we felt exclusive,we felt white,left wing,post colonial,liberal,progressive guilt.We talked in parrot fashion and agreed in lock step with each other.Anybody who disagreed was banished to the far reaches of right-wing,”you,re straight man”,censorship.
    Dissent was dealt with swiftly (left wing Mc,Carthy-Inquisition style.
    All the worlds problems were the sum and total result of the Rebulican,Conservative,Zionist plot.I was anti-Vietnam then,as I am now,but unlike many others,I can drink tea with one hand and kill flies with the other.In other words I can be critical of the Bush-Neo.Con Iraq strategy and just as critical of Islamic-Religio,Facism and the immense demographic and ideological threat to European society.