I hadn’t found the time to write up on this, but fortunately someone on the UMSU website has done it for me:

[Two weeks ago], a great victory was won at the University of Manchester Students’ Union. In attempt to hold to ransom the Palestinian University that we had twinned with, Al Najah in Nablus, the right in the Union put forward the Peace Through Education motion that sought to label Al Najah students as supporting terrorism. Students at Manchester, however, saw through the lies perpetrated by the supporters of Motion 1 and realised that this was a negative motion that sought to break our twinning, demonise Palestinians and to silence any criticism of Israeli atrocities on campus. Amid intimidation, racist abuse and childish insults, Palestinian activists put the case for their Amendment and for Palestine. In the best attended General Meeting since the 1990s, more than 1,100 students turned out to deliver a massive majority in favour of the amendment (634 for, 372 against, 13 abstentions) and subsequently in favour of the Amended Motion (531 for, 210 against, 17 abstentions).

What Wednesday proved was that support for our Twinning Agreement with Al Najah is overwhelming on campus. The campaign to defend it drew many other societies which at first glance would seem uninvolved. It politicised our campus and showed that the sometimes complex arguments about Palestine can become a mass campaign for justice and freedom.

The vote challenged the prevailing ideas in society at the moment, that Palestinians are suicide bombers, that people who resist imperialism and colonialism are terrorists and that the enemies of US and UK Imperialism and Israeli colonialism are inhuman religious fanatics. Instead, students at Manchester overwhelmingly backed the resistance in Palestine, it saw that the root of the problem was the colonial state of Israel and it recognised that under brutal occupation ordinary people can heroically resist.

See also the Action Palestine press release.

Now, I’m starting to think that those “prevailing ideas in society” prevail only in the media. I was one of those campaigning for this vote, and was surprised at what a positive response I got from people. A lot of those who weren’t students or who were unable to make the meeting expressed sympathy with the Palestinian cause, and only a very few times did I have to explain the hypocrisy of equating Palestinians with terrorists, or put the violence of the oppressed in the context of, um, violent oppression.

One girl even marched up to me, with a leaflet in her hand supporting the Zionist motion, saying “this is all wrong!” and asking what she could do about it. More generally, while explaining the content of the motion, I rarely got to say the words “renounce terror” without provoking a tut or a rolling of the eyes. What really struck me at the meeting - aside from the necessary logistical nightmare that is democracy - was how on the defensive the Zionists were. “We’re not denying the Palestinians’ right to resist, but …”, “no-one wants to end the twinning, but…” - actually, I’ve spoken to these people in the past and they do deny the suffering of the Palestinians, they do oppose the twinning and have since its inception, but didn’t consider it politically viable to say so.

Of course, Manchester is one of the more politicised of universities, and has a large Muslim student body, so the rosy picture painted here may not apply to the whole country. It was also disappointing that, as a result of the aforementioned logistical nightmare, there was no time to debate any other motions; another seven had been scheduled, uncontroversial but still important. These mainly concerned student issues - some bread-and-butter, some political - but Motion 8 was to condemn a potential war with Iran.

However, this was a great day for solidarity; instead of “Why are we twinned with TERRORISTS?!“, the sad little vigil in the union entry now has a placard to the effect of “How dare they call us RACISTS?!“, and instead of sending an ultimatum and a racist slur, we’re receiving the gift of an olive tree. “It may a the symbol of peace“, many of us were nonetheless thinking, “but where can we put it in chilly Manchester where it won’t just die?“. But if we can defeat the Zionist lobby, I’m sure we can organise the erection of a little greenhouse or something.