Over 200 students packed a Student General Meeting at the University of Sydney this week, overwhelmingly rejecting the university’s new definition of antisemitism, designed to smear supporters of Palestine, and standing up to a crackdown on the right to protest.
The meeting also voted to support the demand for a single democratic secular Palestinian state from the river to the sea and to reaffirm the demand to cut all ties with Israel. The SGM was organised by members of Students Against War and convened by the Students’ Representative Council (SRC).
Contributions calling for the end of the apartheid state of Israel, in violation of the new definition, were met with some of the loudest applause.
One speaker, a member of Solidarity and Students Against War, told the crowd, “There is no two-state solution. The only self-determination is the self-determination of the colonised, not the coloniser. The violence of the oppressed is not equal to the violence of the oppressor.”
When two Zionist students spoke against the motions, calling pro-Palestine protesters antisemitic and condemning Hamas, the entire auditorium turned their backs on them. In response to their claims, an anti-Zionist student from a Jewish family spoke in support of the motion to support the one-state solution, telling the crowd: “I’m tired of being represented by Jewish people that think defending the state of Israel is valid, so I decided to come and speak for myself.”
In the end, only two students voted against any of the motions. It was an incredibly important moment for the movement on campus in a context where the right to support Palestine is under serious attack.
The new Universities Australia definition of antisemitism, adopted by nearly all Australian universities, states that criticism of Israel can be antisemitic “when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel”. It draws heavily on the widely-condemned International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition which has been opposed by organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In response to complaints from Zionist organisations about the SGM, the University confirmed that the definition would be “used by decision makers to assess complaints and allegations of anti-Semitism”. This means that students who rightly call for an end to the apartheid state of Israel could now face disciplinary action for doing so.
Crackdown on protests
In the lead-up to the meeting, the University had also threatened to cancel the room booking for the SGM unless the meeting was recorded and every student who wanted to attend presented their identification to security. These demands were dropped after opposition from the SRC.
This is only the latest assault on the right to protest for Palestine on campus. After the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last year, the University introduced a new Campus Access Policy (CAP) which banned protests and stalls that had not been approved by the University. More recent restrictions have included a ban on lecture announcements before classes.
An important part of building for the SGM was defying these restrictions, particularly in lectures where announcements were banned.
In one social work class, a lecturer yelled over their student when the student mentioned the word genocide in an announcement. In response, 30 students from social work signed a letter to the head of the school demanding that lecture announcements be allowed, and a number of other students made announcements in the next class with the hostile teacher acquiescing. A large contingent from the class attended the SGM.
But the success of the meeting was not inevitable. Shamefully, much of the student Left on campus had given in to the university’s intimidation and threats against support for Palestine. When the petition for an SGM was launched, Students Against War members were called into a meeting with representatives of groups including Socialist Alternative and Students for Palestine, who claimed that it was too risky to oppose the antisemitism definition because students would not understand our arguments and we would be playing into the hands of Zionist activists.
Even after the meeting was called, these groups refused to help promote it and effectively boycotted the event.
This meant that members of Students Against War and Solidarity, supported by the Queer Action Collective, had to work much harder to ensure the turnout of 200 students necessary to give the meeting official force.
The fact that over 200 students showed up in such a repressive atmosphere was a testament to the ongoing support for Palestine on campus—and the possibility of building a solidarity movement. It was the largest pro-Palestine event on campus since the SGM held last year in the aftermath of the student encampment—and could have been far larger if the SRC and the rest of the student left had thrown their support fully behind it.
The result has sent a strong message to the university about the scale of student opposition to their antisemitism definition and their attempts to target pro-Palestine activists.
More will need to be done to make the restrictions on the right to protest a dead letter and to cut all the ties to Israel. But the success of the SGM should give confidence to students everywhere to keep fighting for Palestine.
By Angus Dermody
