OPINION: The NUS spent 17 years teaching students to be racist in a socially acceptable way
In the wake of last week's damning report, the National Union of Students has become part of a wider issue – "putting Jews on trial and finding them guilty", writes Alex Hearn
‘Racism is evil. Antisemitism is not real, and complaining about antisemitism is inherently racist. Therefore, Jews must be evil.’
This was the twisted thought process exposed by Rebecca Tuck KC’s unambiguous and damning report into antisemitism within the National Union of Students (NUS).
Relating the facts of their experience, Jewish students complaining of antisemitism were assumed to be acting in bad faith and disbelieved. On the other hand, claims about Jewish students being motivated by a racist agenda and other nefarious intentions were automatically accepted without question, despite a lack of evidence.
This form of gas-lighting Jewish people when they sound the alarm about antisemitism is not limited to the UK. On the very same day the investigation into NUS antisemitism was released, a news story surfaced about Jewish students in the USA being subjected to near identical treatment.
It was reported that a George Washington University lecturer called Lara Sheehi had been harassing and discriminating against Jewish students. When they complained, the students’ testimony was not only rejected, but they were punished for an ‘unnamed offence’. Retaliation came in the form of a counter-accusation of racism by Sheehi, which was believed despite there being no evidence to her claim.
The accusation of Jews being dishonest and underhand is consistent with classic Christian teachings about Judas representing the lies of Jews and their betrayal of Jesus. It took until 2011 for a full and unequivocal recanting of this idea in Pope Benedict’s book Jesus of Nazareth – 2,000 years too late. The millennia-long teaching of contempt cannot be easily undone. It is now part of the collective memory and of the cultural heritage of society.
Incidents described in the report were mostly classic antisemitism in the context of Israel/Palestine, reminiscent of Soviet antisemitic propaganda. An NUS officer tweeted the medieval accusation that Jews drink the blood of babies to a Jewish student. The trigger was Coca Cola, who have a distribution plant in the West Bank, sponsoring an NUS event.
The millennia-long teaching of contempt cannot be easily undone. It is now part of the collective memory and of the cultural heritage of society.
Who can Jewish students turn to when their abusers are elected NUS representatives or attendees at NUS conferences? Like the Labour Party where Luciana Berger ‘went from being a Labour MP to being a Jewish MP’, students found that everywhere they turned, they were defined by their Jewishness in hostile terms.
It was the ideology surrounding them.
Even more alarmingly, the problems that arose in the Labour Party and that are now apparent in the NUS have become part of a wider issue. Antisemitic themes are whitewashed within progressive circles and then used by other elements of society.
To underline the point, the BBC website report about Tuck’s investigation ended with a section called ‘legitimate criticism’. It amplified the original NUS narrative, that antisemitism complaints made by Jewish students were false and made in bad faith.
In doing so, the BBC report legitimised a malicious campaign against Jews.
Many students will encounter antisemitic ideas about Jewish people online before they even meet someone who is Jewish. Rebecca Tuck’s report shows that in universities, the NUS has been validating these ideas as part of a liberation movement. After learning how to hate Jews in a socially acceptable way, the students then go into the wider world to spread their ideology – university is the breeding ground for ideas after all.
This form of gas-lighting Jewish people when they sound the alarm about antisemitism is not limited to the UK.
Through the ages, Jewish people have been accused of the evils of society. Not so long ago, Jewish ‘racial impurity’ was the Satan of the day.
Following the development of the human rights movement, this idea has been inverted and Jews are now denounced for being racists themselves. The NUS have put Jews on trial and found them guilty, just like the generations before them did. It is a story as old as western civilisation itself.
The NUS made an unequivocal apology following the release of the report. But now they must be judged by their actions.
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