OPINION: NUS has spent 17 years teaching students to be racist in a socially acceptable way

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Racism is wrong. Anti-Semitism is not real and complaining about anti-Semitism is inherently racist. Therefore, Jews must be bad.

This was the twisted thought process exposed by Rebecca Tuck KC’s unambiguous and damning report on anti-Semitism within the National Union of Students (NUS).

Reporting the facts of their experience, Jewish students complaining of anti-Semitism were expected to act in bad faith and disbelieve. On the other hand, claims that Jewish students were motivated by a racist agenda and other nefarious intentions were automatically accepted without question, despite the lack of evidence.

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Alex Hearn.

This form of gaslighting Jews as they sound the alarm on anti-Semitism is not limited to the UK. The same day the NUS antisemitism survey was released, a news story surfaced about Jewish students in the United States being subjected to nearly identical treatment.

A George Washington University lecturer, Lara Sheehi, has been reported to have harassed and discriminated against Jewish students. When they complained, the students’ testimony was not only dismissed, but they were punished for an unnamed offense. The retaliation took the form of a counter-accusation of racism by Sheehi, which was believed despite there being no evidence for his claim.

The accusation that the Jews are dishonest and devious is consistent with classic Christian teachings about Judas representing the lies of the Jews and their betrayal of Jesus. It took until 2011 for a complete and unequivocal recantation of this idea in Pope Benedict XVI’s book Jesus of Nazareth 2,000 Years Too Late. The millennial teaching of contempt cannot easily be undone. It is now part of the collective memory and cultural heritage of society.

The incidents described in the report were mostly classic anti-Semitism in the context of Israel/Palestine, reminiscent of Soviet anti-Semitic propaganda. A NUS officer tweeted the medieval accusation that Jews drink babies’ blood from a Jewish student. The trigger was Coca Cola, which has a distribution plant in the West Bank, sponsoring a NUS event.

The millennial teaching of contempt cannot easily be undone. It is now part of the collective memory and cultural heritage of society.

Who can Jewish students turn to when their abusers are elected NUS representatives or attendees at NUS conferences? As in the Labor Party where Luciana Berger went from Labor MP to Jewish MP, students found that everywhere they turned they were defined by their Jewishness in hostile terms.

It was the ideology that surrounded them.

More alarmingly, the problems that arose in Labor and are now apparent in the NUS have become part of a larger problem. Antisemitic themes are whitewashed in progressive circles and then used by other elements of society.

To underscore this point, the BBC website’s report on Tucks’ investigation ended with a section titled Legitimate Criticism. This amplified the original NUS narrative that claims of anti-Semitism filed by Jewish students were false and made in bad faith.

In doing so, the BBC report legitimized a malicious campaign against Jews.

Many students will come across anti-Semitic ideas about Jews online even before they meet someone who is Jewish. Rebecca Tucks’ report shows that in universities, NUS validated these ideas as part of a liberation movement. After learning to hate Jews in a socially acceptable way, the students then go all over the world to spread their ideology. The university is after all the breeding ground for ideas.

This form of gaslighting Jews as they sound the alarm on anti-Semitism is not limited to the UK.

Throughout the ages, the Jewish people have been blamed for the evils of society. Not so long ago, Jewish racial impurity was the Satan du jour.

With the development of the human rights movement, this idea has been reversed and Jews are now denounced as racists themselves. The NUS tried Jews and found them guilty, just like the generations before them. It’s a story as old as Western civilization itself.

The NUS issued an unequivocal apology after the report was published. But now they must be judged on their deeds.

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