TOWIE II - repercussions over Israel diplomat's Essex Uni retreat

Electronic Intifada is happy to report that counter-hasbara is still growing on campus in spite of attempts of repressing Palestine solidarity activism.  Here's how they report Essex University's response to the recent protests against the visit of Israel's deputy ambassador to the UK, Alon Roth-Snir:

The week before Israeli Apartheid Week, Essex University students held protests outside and inside an attempted lecture by deputy ambassador Alon Roth-Snir.

Roth-Snir had said little more than “hello” before students in the invite-only audience stood up and started reading from a prepared statement, filibustering his talk. As I reported at the time, the lecture was soon abandoned, and Roth-Snir ultimately left campus with his tail between his legs.

Last week the university’s Vice-Chancellor Anthony Forster sent an email to all staff and students, seen by The Electronic Intifada. In it he threatened “an investigation into potential breaches of the University’s Disciplinary Regulations” over the protests of students against the aborted lecture.

He also wrote that the university would ask the the Students’ Union if it considered whether the actions breached their Code of Conduct.

Student Union President Nathan Bolton soon hit back. “It is not up to the University to define legitimate protest when we face a representative of a state who commits crimes every day,” he responded on Facebook.

He also demanded that no disciplinary action be taken against the students, and for full disclosure over how the event was organized.

At least one member of the university department that hosted Roth-Snir has denied to students that they invited the Israeli representative.

Students have told me they think that the Israeli embassy effectively invited themselves and that many staff in the department were opposed to his talk.

So why isn't the Vice-Chancellor interested in whoever invited "a representative of a state who commits crimes every day"?

Aaron Porter resigns as NUS leader

Aaron Porter, remember him? has resigned as leader of the National Union of Students.  Here's The Guardian:

The president of the National Union of Students, Aaron Porter, is to stand down amid fierce criticism that he did not fight hard enough to prevent university tuition fees from almost trebling.

The 26-year-old, who has led a high-profile campaign against higher fees and education cuts since he took the post in June, said the union needed a "fresh start".

A source at the NUS said Porter was facing too much personal abuse from students angry that the union had not taken a harder stance against fees and cuts.

Personal abuse? That's funny because he had claimed that it was racial, nay more, antisemitic abuse that got to him.

Harry's Place and Engage quietly agree to disagree on an "antisemitic" incident

Here's a thing I've only just noticed.  Harry's Place and Engage are usually very quick to smear critics of Israel as being antisemitic.  The latter, Engage, can usually be relied on to haul up obscure instances of antisemitism when Israel is behaving particularly badly.  But now there have been allegations of antisemitism on student demonstrations from three mainstream media outlets, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail and Sky News and Engage hasn't said a word.  Harry's Place has run a post on it where they saw fit to post a comment as an update thus:

I was at this protest today and I heard 2, yes, two people chanting this [antisemitic abuse]. And, guess what, the two men chanting this were of Asian descent, they were not white. 

The comment goes on to complain that The Daily Mail hadn't mentioned that the offending remarks were made by Asians and not whites and that

about 20 or so people started chanting “no, no, no to racists” at these men.

Ok, so Harry's Place has made a balls up suggesting that The Daily Mail should be racially profiling those it smears but still you would expect a self-styled "anti-racist campaign against antisemitism", such as Engage claims to be, to express concern about these allegations of antisemitism against student protesters against the education cuts in the UK. If the allegations were true you'd expect Engage to report on them and denounce the perpetrators. If false, they might be concerned enough to denounce those using the false allegation of antisemitism in order to deflect criticism of the government over the education cuts.

But of course there is a problem here. Harry's Place is one of the few blogs reporting and supporting the rightist allegations against the students. It turns out that the main activists in the march that drew the false allegations were from the so-called Alliance for Workers Liberty. The AWL are mostly a zionist group masquerading as trotskyists in order to more effectively deploy the antisemitism smear against anti-zionists. To do this effectively they have to get involved in causes that have no direct bearing on Palestine. So there they are getting involved with the students when the right decides that the antisemitism smear might be useful to help the UK government with its little difficulty over the cuts. So now the AWL is in the role reversing position of having to denounce false allegations of antisemitism. So now we have Harry's Place accusing AWL activists of antisemitism when usually HP. the AWL and Engage sing from the same smear sheet. So where is Engage on this?  Does it denounce imaginary antisemitism as it so often does or does it denounce the imaginers?  My bet is that they will continue to ignore the whole thing.

But Harry's Place and the Alliance for Workers Liberty have surpassed even themselves.  For years they have cheapened the allegation of antisemitism.  Now, with Engage's silence on this latest issue, they have bankrupted it.  Well done those three!

Aaron Porter a "tory too": statement of fact or rhyming slang?

The bogus allegation of antisemitism turns up in the unlikeliest of places.  The latest case is that of student protests against, among other things, the National Union of Students' president, Aaron Porter.  The Daily Mail is reporting that

 The national president of the NUS pulled out of speaking at a student fees rally after being surrounded by demonstrators calling for his resignation and shouting anti-Semitic insults at him. 

They went on:

One photographer reported chants of ‘Tory Jew scum’ directed at Mr Porter, who is facing calls to step down as NUS president by members of the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, who claim he has ‘lost the confidence of the movement’.

Unfortunately, whilst I am sure the unnamed photographer will have wished they had a movie camera, they could only could only snap stills. They don't prove anything so it's pointless pasting them here.

Sky news ran the "antisemitic abuse" story too. They did produce a film clip of the event but there is no antisemitic abuse in the film nor does the reporter on film mention any antisemitism.

The allegation is in the write up only:

But Aaron Porter, the president of the National Union of Students, had to be given a police escort after he too became a target.

Demonstrators had surrounded him, chanting anti-Semitic insults and calling for him to resign as he attended the rally.

Still, we have a youtube video of the event. Let's have a see and a listen:

From what I can hear the guy is being accused of being a "Tory too" and at one point someone says "I want to hit you with my shoe". The Guardian report appears to tally with what I heard on the video clip:

Some of the protestors in Manchester turned on Porter – who had been due to speak at a rally in the city – calling him a "Tory too". Porter had previously been calling for unity in the student movement, which has fractured as opinions differ over how best to conduct the demos and sit-ins being organised around the country against the cuts and fee increases.

So does anyone have any evidence for these allegations of antisemitism or has the meaning of antisemitism morphed (yet again) from anti-Jewish to anti-racist to anti-establishment?