Home > Zionists attack free speech on campuses
Wars and conflicts School-University International Australia
by Shua Garfield
Socialist and anti-war groups campaigning on university campuses against Israel’s war on Lebanon and Palestine have faced violence, intimidation and attempts at censorship from Zionists.
At Melbourne University on July 24, Zionist students attacked a Socialist Alternative (SA) stall, where activists were petitioning against the war and leafleting for an anti-war rally. Mick Armstrong from SA told Green Left Weekly, “The Zionists kept coming back to kick over the stall ... Other students were outraged by these anti-democratic attacks and rallied around.” He added that Zionists have encouraged security to shut down SA stalls at Monash and Swinburne universities, and at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, claiming that the stalls were “anti-Semitic” and “racist”.
On August 1, Zionists and others associated with the Liberal Students Club repeatedly tried to unplug a sound system being used in a speak-out against Israel’s war at Melbourne University.
At the University of NSW, Zionist students attacked stalls held by Resistance on July 27 and by SA and the Socialist Worker Student Club (SWSC) on August 2. In all three incidents, the attackers attempted to destroy newspapers and pamphlets displayed on the stalls. Diane Fieldes, a UNSW lecturer and SA member, told GLW that one Zionist photographed people at the SA stall.
The Zionists demanded that the student guild and university security shut down the stalls on August 2. The SWSC stall was shut down, Fieldes was photographed by security when she refused to shut down her stall and, later that day, GLW sellers were harassed by campus security staff.
James Crafti, a Resistance member at the Australian National University in Canberra, told GLW that a Zionist student attempted to assault him and destroy the GLWs he was distributing at the campus on July 20. Katie Cherrington, a Resistance member and employee of the Wollongong Undergraduate Students Association (WUSA), said that on August 2 an extremely agitated Zionist student stole petitions against Israel’s war that were on a WUSA stall. The student then contacted the university’s equal opportunity officer, who pressured WUSA not to take political positions.
The atmosphere being created by Zionist students on some campuses has resulted in acts of censorship by student associations. Nathan Verney, a Resistance member at Curtin University in Perth, told GLW that the student guild refused to allow Resistance to book a room for a meeting to organise an anti-war protest, saying it would be “divisive”. Simon Cunich, the global solidarity officer at Sydney University, told GLW that the student representative council there withdrew its endorsement for an anti-war speak-out on August 3 organised by Students Against War.