Palestine Solidarity Group (PSG) protest against Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev speaking on campus today. Three Socialist Students members were present for solidarity.
Morgan King, Leeds Uni Socialist Students
Mark Regev has condoned Israeli war crimes in Gaza and yet, despite protests going back over a year by PSG, has returned to the University of Leeds for a second time by invitation of the University Union’s Jewish Society. While we at Socialist Students and at PSG recognise the right to free speech of people of any faith, ethnic background or political standpoint, we wholeheartedly condemn the University continuing to give a platform to war criminals and those who contribute to the repression and human rights abuses of Palestinian citizens.
Just last week, on the back of reports of the University’s divestment from their shares in companies providing weapons and military equipment to the State of Israel, the Vice-Chancellor told the students present at his annual Q&A that he believed that the University should always consider the ethical repercussions of financial investments. However, he refused to provide an update on those divestments.
Since then, it has become apparent that the University still holds shares worth more than £1m in HSBC, a company which holds large investments in Elbit Systems – an artillery company that, following the deaths of over 2,000 Palestinians in Operation Protective Edge in 2014, boasted that its weapons were “battle-proven.” Coupled with the hypocrisy of publicly condemning human rights abuses while inviting a war crime apologist to speak discreetly on campus, this failure to divest is symptomatic of the cancer that consumes the University of Leeds and other centres of higher education around the country: the obsession with profit. It is disgusting that our tuition fees are being used to support the criminal actions of a racist state, and it is a terrifying prospect that the leadership of this University cares more about how much more they can add to their £2.2bn surplus than people’s lives.
Protests like PSG’s successful one today, which drew 40-50 people, are the only way we can make our voices heard to create meaningful change at our universities. Whether it’s human rights, student housing or tuition fees you feel strongly about, let what happened today reassure you that there is strength in numbers.
Leeds Socialist Students 