OPINION: Dallali saga just the latest ideological battle fought out at the NUS

The National Union of Students (NUS) sacked its president Shaima Dallali last week in the wake of a King’s Counsel report into antisemitism claims against her. 

These claims include discourse she posted to her social media that included an Islamic battle cry historically used when attacking Jews. Dallali later apologised for tweeting this and removed it as well as several other tweets from her profile.

In a separate, since removed, Twitter thread Dallali lashed out at a Muslim cleric on Twitter, calling him a “dirty Zionist” and in the same thread claimed in Arabic that (according to Google translate): “The Palestinians have the right to resist in all possible ways…even with weapons”, adding: The resistance with weapons is a right and we must accept this.”

At the same time she responded to a statement in support of Israel by the Union of Jewish Students about Jerusalem Day with a tweet saying: “You and your statement can get in the trash.” She responded to a Board of Deputies statement condemning Hamas missiles on civilians by saying: “Time and time against the Bod prove themselves to be ethnic cleansing apartheid apologists.” These tweets have since been removed.

That Dallali was elected president of NUS in spite of it being reported that she had made these statements, begs questions of the rest of the union.

These questions are currently the focus of the work by the King’s Counsel. Rebecca Tuck. Despite the fact Tuck hasn’t yet completed her inquiry into the larger issue of antisemitism within the union as a whole, there are things we can take from the unprecedented decision to dismiss Dallali in the wake of receiving Tuck’s first report, which focused only on Dallali’s comments and issues affecting the union surrounding them.

The ideological battles surrounding Israel, Jews and Zionism that have plagued NUS and wider campus world for decades don’t seem to want to go away.

Many people looking at Dallali’s discourse will be wondering why it required a KC inquiry for NUS to take the action it did. Jewish people don’t need a KC to tell them when something is antisemitic and have a right to be heard when they express their feelings of hurt at statements they consider to be antisemitic. That the NUS couldn’t see what the issue was when it was raised and that they still allowed Dallali to run as a candidate shows a blind spot to antisemitism.

On the other hand, the fact they have acted in an unprecedented way once the KC report was handed to them shows they have taken at least one firm action to right this wrong.

But this is a problem bigger than one individual. The ideological battles surrounding Israel, Jews and Zionism that have plagued NUS and wider campus world for decades don’t seem to want to go away. They have led to no end of controversies.

Perhaps the best known of these was in 2015 when then president, Malia Bouattia, was censured for “comments that could be interpreted as antisemitic” by an inquiry, that like the current one, NUS itself established. She was ordered to apologise for referring to Nottingham University as a “Zionist outpost” owing to the size of its Jewish society. She defended Palestinian terrorism as “resistance” and was an ardent supporter of BDS.

Prior to becoming president, Bouattia had perhaps been best known for campaigning against a motion put to NUS conference to condemn ISIS. The motion failed. She later signed a statement that claimed “condemnation of ISIS appears to have become a justification for war and blatant Islamophobia”. The statement was co-signed by four other student activists, one of whom was Zarah Sultana, the current MP for Coventry South.

Back in 2005 another NUS activist who ended up becoming an MP, Luciana Berger, resigned from her position in the NUS over concerns related to antisemitism. An inquiry was held back then too, making this at least the third hard look at antisemitism within NUS that the union has carried out in the past 17 years. It seems there’s a culture there highly resistant to change.

There are positives, however. There have been statements of support from Students Unions around the country and NUS has said that it is “sorry for the harm that has been caused”. The community awaits the outcome of the inquiry and to hear what further steps NUS intends to take in order to, as they say in their statement, “rebuild NUS in an inclusive way”. The Union of Jewish Students has proven itself to be a robust support network for Jewish students dealing with antisemitism (and other issues) and the Community Security Trust is proud to work alongside them to support Jewish students in dealing with any antisemitism they encounter.