Union of Jewish Students to run antisemitism training at campuses

The Starmer regime has appointed the Union of Jewish Students to run six hundred so-called ‘antisemitism training’ sessions in UK universities to combat what Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson called the “poison of antisemitism” on UK campuses.

The Union of Jewish Students is an explicitly pro-Israel and Israel–funded organisation that runs an ‘Israel portal‘ and has boasted of how many of its former members are ‘serving’ in Israel’s genocidal government and military:

UJS alumni are currently serving in senior positions in Israeli gov, IDF & even the President’s office.

The Union of Jewish Students

The Union of Jewish Students is the group that played a key role in the antisemitism smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. They then hounded professor David Miller out of Bristol University despite two separate barrister-led inquiries finding that he had said nothing antisemitic. A tribunal later found that Miller’s anti-Israel views are protected political speech and awarded him damages against the university, but Bristol did not reinstate him.

The group also denies Israel’s genocide in Gaza, despite the United Nations, human rights groups – including in Israel, academic genocide experts and ‘plausibly’ the World Court – finding Israel is committing genocide, alongside an endless flood of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Union of Jewish Students hosted articles by BICOM, an Israel lobby organisation that boasts of its “unique links to key figures in the Israeli government”, that regurgitated Israeli PM Netanyahu’s comments condemning South Africa for bringing its genocide case to the International Court of Justice and dismissing the very idea that Israel is committing genocide as “outrageous”.

The Union of Jewish Students has since deleted the pages with the BICOM articles, although they were successfully archived on the Wayback Machine up to May this year:

Attacking academics

One of the accusations the Union of Jewish Students flung at Miller during its campaign against him was that he accused “Jewish charities of ‘aiding genocide in Gaza'”. Despite its apparent unwillingness to consider Israel’s mass slaughter of almost 700,000 Palestinians in Gaza a genocide, it is quite eager to condemn China’s “Uyghur genocide”, despite no court agreeing that it is committing one and China’s critics mostly attacking China for attempting to assimilate the Uyghurs in a ‘cultural genocide’ that erases their separateness, rather than trying to end their existence.

As well as attacking academics and politicians whose pro-Palestine views it dislikes, the Union of Jewish Students also targets student body leaders. In 2022, its smears against National Union of Students (NUS) president Shaima Dallali led to the NUS removing her from her elected position. Dallali’s ‘antisemitic’ ‘crimes’ were to repeat a slogan supporting Palestinian liberation from occupation – and to criticise the Union of Jewish Students for its “well-documented role” in smearing and attempting to silence Israel’s critics, such as rapper and political commentator Lowkey.

And vitally, the Union of Jewish Students has been accused of acting to legitimise the Gaza genocide on British university campuses, whitewash the coloniser’s crimes, and de-legitimise Palestinian voices and groups.

Legitimisation of Israel and Zionism

In case there is anyone who has been asleep for the past decade and just woke up unable to imagine that a ‘Labour’ government would put the Zionist fox in charge of the university chicken coops in this way, Keir Starmer has long form for doing exactly that.

Not long after taking over as party leader, as part of his determination to legitimise years of antisemitism smears against his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn and the political left and shore up the antisemitic proposition that all Jews support Israel and its crimes against the Palestinian people, Starmer gave pro-Israel fanatic groups the Board of Deputies (BOD) and the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) a veto over which groups are allowed to sit on the party’s ‘independent’ ‘advisory board’ on antisemitism. The move was part of manoeuvres that led to mass suspensions and expulsions of left-wing members, with others leaving in disgust – and all smeared by Israel supporting (then-Shadow) Chancellor Rachel Reeves as antisemitic.

Starmer also gave control of Labour’s antisemitism ‘training’ of members to the JLM and other Zionist groups – training that was then slammed by Martin Forde, the barrister Starmer appointed to investigate racism among Labour staffers (then buried his report and did nothing) as inadequate and deeply one-sided against Jewish party members who do not support Israel and its attempts to control the narrative of its actions.

Starmer and his fellow-travellers, then, are giving control of ‘training’ on the topic of supposed antisemitism to the Union of Jewish Students – a group that to all appearances exists to legitimise Israel, gloss over its crimes and de-legitimise Palestinians and their Jewish allies – and the move is as unsurprising as it is appalling.

Featured image via the Canary