The UK’s National Union of Students passed a motion Tuesday to join worldwide efforts to boycott Israel over violations of Palestinian human rights. The motion explicitly aligns the union with the Palestinian-instigated Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
The NUC’s Executive Council passed motion 518, dubbed “Justice for Palestine,” with 19 members voting in favor, 12 against and three abstaining.
The motion also called on the British Parliament to stop arms sales to Israel.
The NUC is the UK’s umbrella student organization for some 600 higher education institutions representing 7 million students.
The motion “condemns Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza,” and calls on students to “co-ordinate a nationwide student day of action to commemorate UN Palestine Solidarity Day on 29 November,” the Jewish Chronicle reported.
“Justice for Palestine” also included amendment 518a, a provision proposed by the student union of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London formally aligning the student organization with the BDS initiative. After a heated debate, 19 Executive Council members voted in favor of the provision, 14 against and one abstained.
The Jewish Chronicle reported that the vote took place through a secret ballot, and was originally scheduled to take place at the NUC’s annual conference in April, but was postponed until June due to lack of time to debate the issue.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the decision had “little practical implications, since this body has already voiced anti-Israel opinions in the past.”
“Instead of expressing hatred, British students would benefit from studying history and understanding that the distance between conveying hate language and prejudice to committing despicable crimes is not that great,” the spokesperson said.
This story has been edited from the source material.
