The NUS has since posted a media release confirming their public support, with a particular emphasis on resisting the “second Nakba” currently taking place in Gaza.
The National Union of Students (NUS) has unanimously voted to stand in solidarity with Palestine at its 2023 National Conference.
156 delegates representing 23 university campuses across Australia supported a bloc of five motions on Tuesday afternoon. These include publishing a statement about Palestine, freeing Layan Kayed and all Palestinian political prisoners, condemning the Israeli government’s destruction of human rights and standing against Islamophobia.
The NUS has since posted a media release confirming their public support, with a particular emphasis on resisting the “second Nakba” currently taking place in Gaza.
Mover Cherish Kuehlmann from SAlt at UNSW spoke to Honi about why she supported this bloc: “we’ve seen indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools, UN centres. There is a siege and blockade on essential medication, food and water – Gaza has been turned to rubble.”
When speaking on the power of NUS Cherish said, “student unions need to take a stand against genocide, apartheid and oppression. That’s why I moved this motion.”
University of Sydney’s 2023 Education Officer Ishbel Dunsmore, who worked within Grassroots to ensure this bloc of motions was supported by both Unity and NLS, also commented that achieving a free Palestine “requires heeding the call from Palestinian trade unionists to internationally mobilise [unionists] to end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes, most urgently to end the arming of Israel.”
A Palestinian activist present at the conference noted that the NUS’ “support of an immediate ceasefire in Palestine, the release of Palestinian political prisoners, support for the BDS movement, including a designation that NUS is now an Apartheid-Free Zone, condemning Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, and calling for a National Day of Action for Palestine” is “an historic moment.”
In particular, it shows “there is a growing divergence between Labor and Labor Youth on the topic of Palestine.”
A member of the anti-Zionist, anti-colonial Tzedek Collective also present at the conference commented that “as a Jewish descendent of Holocaust survivors”, it was “an honour and a mitzvah to be a part of writing one of these motions that commits the NUS to making Australian university campuses apartheid free zones.”
He added that this historic motion “also commits the NUS to recognise that Zionism is not the same thing as Judaism, and thus critiquing Zionism of its violent nature is not antisemitic.”
Notably, Western Australian Independents Melanie and Amira also spoke to Honi about how their bloc of motions in support of Palestine failed to gain unanimous support from the NUS. They emphasised that Unity told them “they had a problem with the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ and the term ‘genocide’” in motions 2.7 and 11.14.
As well as being “basic and descriptive terms to explain what is happening in Palestine”, Melanie and Amira also pointed out that the term “genocide” features in Unity’s motion in the Ethnocultural chapter.
Member of Students For Palestine Jasmine Al-Rawi echoed these sentiments, stating that it “is a really good step that the NUS has adopted a pro-Palestine position”, but that it “is also important to continue fighting and actually put these motions into action.”
For more coverage of NatCon 2023, see Honi Soit’s live updates on Instagram and X.
Disclaimer: Simone Maddison is a current member of USYD Grassroots.
