The UK’s National Union of Students has been forced to apologise for having deliberately left out Israeli victims of terrorism from a list of countries suffering from terrorist attacks, at the union’s National Executive Council meeting earlier this month.
Despite Israel suffering no fewer than 169 terror attacks targeting Israeli Jews in 120 days, the NUS statement read out at its meeting mentioned attacks by “paramilitary organisations” carried out in Nigeria, Lebanon, Turkey, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kenya, Palestine, Mali and Paris, but not Israel. The inclusion of Palestine in the list suggests that the omission of Israel was deliberately discriminatory. In recent months Israeli civilians have been the victims of numerous Palestinian perpetrated rock-throwings, vehicular attacks where pedestrians were run over deliberately by cars or vans, and stabbings. These have resulted in numerous deaths and injuries.
The original National Union of Students’ statement read “those who have perpetrated these attacks, have targeted people of all faiths, of all backgrounds and of all identities. Since the attacks, we have seen an increase in retributions places on Muslim communities here in the UK and around the world. We restate the NUS’ commitment to fighting Islamophobia.” The Jewish victims of terrorism in Israel were not mentioned, though.
Since being condemned widely for this action, National Union of Students president Megan Dunn eventually apologised to Jewish students at an event with around 100 Jewish attendees. She insisted that “antisemitism and abuse of Jewish students is unacceptable.”
