NUS National Conference Hears Arguments Against Commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day

The National Union of Students conference today heard arguments against the official commemoration of the Holocaust.
An amendment to a motion combating anti-Semitism on campuses argued that “education is vital” and the NUS should coordinate events on Holocaust Memorial Day. Yet some attendees sparked controversy by speaking against the move. Darta Kaleja, from Chester University, argued against the amendment on the grounds that it singled out the Holocaust and ignored other atrocities.
She told the conference: “I am against the NUS ignoring and forgetting other mass genocides and prioritising others.
“It suggests some lives are more important than others.
“When during my education was I taught about the genocides in Tibet or Rwanda?
“It is important to commemorate all of them.”
Speaking in favour of the amendment, Sam Gold, of Leeds University, said: “The living memory of the Holocaust is dying.”
Referring to the official NUS commemoration this year, he asked: “How come on Holocaust Memorial Day there was just one tweet, and one blog?” Gold pleaded with the conference to support the motion in order to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive within the NUS.


Both Labour and Conservative MPs were among public figures to respond to the debate.
Sir Eric Pickles, the former cabinet minister and current special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, said the debate was “unbelievable”.


Labour MP John Mann announced he is to lead a rally against racism in the NUS attended by former presidents of the union.

Earlier, the Brighton conference passed a policy to restrict messages on anonymous apps such as Yik Yak in order to make campus elections “safe”. And black students officer Malia Bouattia dramatically unseated current NUS president Megan Dunn during a tense election.




http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/nus-national-conference_uk_57174a2ee4b0f22f021a6a28?utm_hp_ref=uk







Is there any surprise based on the new leader of the NUS?





On Wednesday the 13^th of April 2016 a letter was put out by several representatives of Jewish societies up and down the country. It took issue with numerous aspects of Malia Bouattia’s credentials for NUS President;

“Just recently you explained at an event at SOAS that the government Prevent strategy is the result of a so called ‘Zionist lobby’.  By peddling these conspiracy theories to student audiences we are concerned that you are creating an element of suspicion towards Jewish students on campus.”

This was based on a Telegraph article which can be viewed here.

Bouattia replied on Thursday the 14^th of April 2016;

“At the SOAS event mentioned in your letter, I criticised the influence of organisations such as the Henry Jackson Society over policy making in the UK. I described it as promoting neo-con and pro-Zionist policies. In no way did I – or would I – link these positions to Jewish people, but to a particular (non-Jewish) organisation.”

Actually at the aforementioned SOAS event Bouattia said something else entirely:

“For Britain, suppressing activism and solidarity with the resistance or in support of Palestine more generally is crucial for it to maintain its relationship with Israel and all the benefits that that brings with it. Especially through PREVENT the British government has rendered the questions of Palestine alongside other issues relating to British foreign policy all but illegitimate and has eroded the space in civil society of student activism in which they can be explored and deconstructed. And so naturally it has been an agenda that has been pursued and fueled by all manner of Zionist and neo-con lobbies and interest over the years. And this totalitarian framework characterised by Islamophobic rhetoric banishing civil liberties and sophisticated surveillance mechanism has been shared and adopted by liberal Western democracies far and wide in defence of their immoral allegiances.”

But don’t trust us have a listen for yourself we have a recording of the entire meeting. Nope, no mention of the Henry Jackson society whatsoever. Bouattia speaks from 11:45 – 21:44, the above statement is made from 15:41 onward.

When Bouattia talks about suppression of activism and solidarity is she once again referring to Jewish Societies taking issue with Jews being compared to Nazis?

Bouattia should clarify what she means when she talks about “Zionist…lobbies” and should also give examples of how such lobbies are “fueling Prevent”.

There are plenty of Zionist members of the National Union of Students if she wants to be President of NUS she is going to be representing those students. When she says Zionist lobbies does she mean Zionist students?

Who does she mean?

Will she clarify what on earth she’s talking about?



http://hurryupharry.org/2016/04/18/bouattia-in-her-own-words/




It didn’t matter that she sees a large Birmingham Jewish Society as a problem.

It didn’t matter that the Tab has a video of her talking about “violent resistance” to Israel.

It doesn’t matter that she thinks Zionists are responsible for policies adopted by the British government.

She was still elected to be the President of the National Union of Students at their annual conference.

Watch the President elect talk about Zionist control of the media below.



http://hurryupharry.org/2016/04/20/bouattia-is-nus-president/

Darta Kaleja is in the news today, when her speech against the particular commemoration of the Holocaust on Holocaust Memorial Day was applauded at NUS Conference.
You can see the video here:




Guido Fawkes provides the transcript:

“Before I start I want to make it clear I am not against commemorating the Holocaust. I am against the NUS and the government forgetting and ignoring the mass genocides, and prioritising some lives over others… In my five years of UK education throughout GCSEs and A Levels, not once were the genocides of Tibet, Rwanda, or Zanzibar taught to me and my peers. So please, please vote against this motion, against the one day dedicated purely to atrocities of just one mass genocide, as it suggests that some lives are more important than others. Instead campaign for a day to commemorate all of them.”

Holocaust Memorial Day does, of course, teach about other genocides: including Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.


As a woman of Latvian extraction, I would have thought that Darta Kaleja would have an interest in commemorating the Holocaust: an event which took place in her country of origin. (According to her Facebook page, she attended this private school in Latvia before coming to the United Kingdom)
In 1939, Latvia had a Jewish population of 95,600.
According to Wikipedia, it is estimated that 90% of Latvia’s Jews were murdered during the Nazi occupation. Persecution continued when the USSR returned.
Latvia now has a Jewish population of around 6,500.
Latvians participated in the murder of Jews:

[T]he Latvian Arajs Kommando played a leading role in the atrocities committed in the Riga ghetto in conjunction with the Rumbula massacre on 30 November 1941. One of the most notorious members of the group was Herberts Cukurs. After the war, surviving witnesses reported that Cukurs had been present during the ghetto clearance and fired into the mass of Jewish civilians. According to another account Cukurs also participated in the Burning of the Riga synagogues. According to Bernard Press in his book The Murder of the Jews in Latvia, Cukurs burned the synagogue on Stabu Street
At the instigation of the Einsatzgruppe, the Latvian auxiliary police carried out a pogrom against the Jews in Riga. All synagogues were destroyed and 400 Jews were killed. According to Stahlecker’s report, the number of Jews killed in mass executions by Einsatzgruppe A by the end of October 1941 in Riga, Jelgava (Mitau),Liepāja (Libau), Valmiera(Wolmar), and Daugavpils (Dvinsk) totaled 30,025, and by the end of December 1941, 35,238 Latvian Jews had been killed; 2,500 Jews remained in the Riga Ghetto and 950 in the Daugavpils ghetto.

Here is some more information from Wikipedia on the complicity and participation of the Latvian authorities in the Holocaust:

In Liepājathe first mass killing of Jews took place on July 3 and 4, when about 400 people were shot dead, and on July 8 when 300 Jews were killed. The German group of SD and policemen did the shooting, while the members of Latvian Selbstschutz convoyed victims to the killing site.^[12]On July 13 the destroying of the large choral synagogue of Liepāja began. The rolls of the Scripture were spread on theUgunsdzēsēju Square, and the Jews were forced to march across their sacred things, with watchers merrily laughing at the amusing scene. The above operations took place under the direct leadership of Erhard Grauel, commander of theEinsatzgruppe’s Sonderkommando.
Thereafter Grauel went to Ventspils. The killings were jointly carried out by German Ordnungspolizei and the men of the local Selbstschutz. On July 16-July 18, 300 people were shot dead in the Kaziņu Forest. In July–August the remaining 700 Jews of the town were shot dead, while the Jews of the region were killed in the autumn. The shooting was carried out by German, Latvian and Estonian SD men who had arrived by ship. Soon a poster appeared on the Kuldīga-Ventspils highway, which said that Ventspils was Judenfrei (free of Jews).
In Daugavpils the extermination of Jews was initially commanded byErich Ehrlinger, chief of Einsatzkommando 1b.^[13] By July 11 they had killed about 1150 people. Ehrlinger’s work was continued by Joachim Hamann, who was liable for the killing of 9012 Jews in the city and in southern Latgale. The chief of the local auxiliary police Roberts Blūzmanis had rendered active assistance by ensuring the moving of the Jews to the Grīva ghetto and transporting them to the killing places.

Latvia was also used as an execution ground for German Jews:

At the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, Jews deported from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and other German occupied countries began arriving in Latvia. Some 15,000 “Reich Jews” were settled in several streets of the liquidated “greater Riga ghetto”. Many transports were taken straight from the Riga railroad station to execution sites in the Rumbula and Biķernieki forests near Riga, and elsewhere. In 1942 about 800 Jews from Kaunas Ghetto (in Lithuania) were brought to Riga and some of them participated in the underground organization in the Riga ghetto.

One would have hoped that Darta Kaleja would have more interest in commemorating this aspect of local European history.
You can read more about the Holocaust in Latvia, here.

Members of Latvian Auxiliary Police assemble a group of Jews, Liepāja, July, 1941

http://hurryupharry.org/2016/04/21/darta-kaleja-doesnt-particularly-want-to-remember-the-holocaust/

he National Union of Students caused widespread outrage on Wednesday after students applauded motions not to commemorate the Holocaust, because doing so isn't 'inclusive'.
The motion to remember the Holocaust ended up passing, but some argued it shouldn't have even been an issue at conference - and that the arguments against commemorating the event were 'anti-Semitic'.

What do you mean, NUS, when you say the Holocaust wasn't "inclusive" enough? Should Hitler have killed more? Actually baffled #NUSConference
— Elliot J. Cornish (@ElliotJCornish) April 20, 2016

@DannyCohen I am truly devastated what NUS has become where delegates applaud opposition of commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day #shameful
— Josh Rom (@JoshRomOfficial) April 20, 2016

An amendment to a motion combating anti-Semitism on campuses argued that “education is vital”.
They said the NUS should organise campuses into creating events on Holocause Memorial Day.
Darta Kaleja, from Chester University, shocked many by speaking against the amendment.
She told the conference: “I am against the NUS ignoring and forgetting other mass genocides and prioritising others.
“It suggests some lives are more important than others.
“When during my education was I taught about the genocides in Tibet or Rwanda?
“It is important to commemorate all of them.”

"The NUS shouldn't support Holocaust Memorial Day because it isn't inclusive."

Page 1 of the HMD website: pic.twitter.com/MAh6rhyPs5
— Ben Powell (@PenBowell) April 20, 2016

The NUS just applauded a comment about not remembering Holocaust memorial day, then elected an anti-semitc President who wont condemn ISIS.
— Todd (@toddjcoop) April 20, 2016

Speaking in favour of the amendment, Sam Gold, of Leeds University, said: “The living memory of the Holocaust is dying.”
Another student spoke against the motion and said: “Of course there shouldn’t be anti-Semitism but it’s not about one set of people.”
However, a delegate argued back, saying the NUS “had a problem” with anti-Semitism and that it was a “scourge” on the student movement.

More sad evidence of far left's antisemitism problem:UK student leaders applaud attacks on Holocaust Remembrance Day https://t.co/pAKzvtVdVG
— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) April 20, 2016

What a sick joke the NUS are. Clapping in support of calls to not recognise Holocaust Memorial Day
— Andrew Percy (@andrewpercy) April 20, 2016

According to students at the conference, people were shocked that delegates were heard clapping after arguments against commemorating the Holocaust.
Political figures have condemned the debate. 
Sir Eric Pickles, former cabinet minister and current special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, described the debate as“unbelievable”.

My comments on reports today of NUS delegates applauding speeches opposing the commemoration of the Holocaust pic.twitter.com/7DJmJuAMZL
— John Mann (@JohnMannMP) April 20, 2016

UNBELIEVABLE: there are some within the NUS that allow Antisemitism flourish within their organisation
— Sir Eric Pickles (@EricPickles) April 20, 2016

John Mann MP said he is going to announce a rally against racism in response to the debate, and Tom Blenkinsop MP said  "What on earth is going on?!".
The Telegraph has contacted the NUS for comment.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/20/outrage-as-students-at--nus-conference-argue-against-commemorati/


And some of the left have the balls to claim they champion fighting against social injustices. As seen some of the worst racists are found to be on the left.

Disgusting does not even begin to describe these low life scum

Here is a link to the Holocaust Memorial Trust
Which covers many of the genocides, showing this claim made by those on the regressive left is nothing short of a lie.

http://hmd.org.uk/page/holocaust-genocides

Oxford University students have said they want to cut ties with the National Union of Students after it elected a woman accused of anti-Semitism as president.
Four of Oxford’s six NUS delegates have said they want to push for a university-wide vote on disaffiliation, the student newspaper Cherwell reported.

Malia Bouattia Credit: Facebook

Malia Bouattia won 50.9 per cent of the vote to become president of the NUS despite an open letter from almost 50 Jewish student leaders saying they were “extremely concerned” by her views amid rising extremism and anti-Semitism on campus.
In her previous role as a member of the NUS’s executive committee, Ms Bouattia blocked the union from passing a motion condemning Isil, calling it “Islamophobic.” In a recent talk, she dismissed the threat of “so-called terrorism” in the UK and blamed Government anti-terrorism policy on a “Zionist and neo-con lobby.”
She has also attacked “Zionist-led media outlets” for causing Muslims to have an “obsession of convincing non-Muslims of our non-violent and peaceful nature, so that we’re… dangerously condemning the resistance, branding groups and individuals as terrorists to dissociate from them.”





In video footage from 2014 obtained by The Telegraph, Ms Bouattia condemned the Israel-Palestine peace process as “strengthening the colonial project”.
She added: “To consider that Palestine will be free only by means of fundraising, non-violent protest and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is problematic…[These] can be misunderstood as the alternative to resistance by the Palestinian people.”  
Ms Bouattia has criticised her alma mater, Birmingham University, as a “Zionist outpost in higher education,” saying it has “the largest Jsoc [Jewish student society] in the country.”
The group of four Oxford NUS delegates wrote on Facebook: “We no longer believe that Oxford’s membership of the NUS can be justified.
“The point of a union for students is to deliver real representation for all students, and what has occurred this conference shows that this is no longer a priority for those who hold power in the NUS.”





Oxford University NUS delegate Harry Samuels told Newsnight Ms Bouattia’s election “enshrines the fact that the NUS no longer represents all students but there are other grievances that we have with the rest of the organisation.”

The NUS has just elected an arguable anti-Semite as its President. How on earth can it say it represents Jewish students now? #NUSNC16
— Harry Samuels (@CuriousCabbage) April 20, 2016

Students at other leading universities are also said to be considering disaffiliation, including Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh and King’s College London.
Ms Bouattia has rejected the allegations, saying she is "extremely uncomfortable with insinuations of anti-Semitism" and stated: "for me to take issue with Zionist politics is not me taking issue with being Jewish".




In her election speech at the NUS’s national conference on Wednesday Ms Bouattia said: “I will continue to fight anti-semitism, homphobia, xenophobia or any other bigoted idea.”
She has also said: “Jews have faced horrendous persecution over thousands of years and Jewish students on campuses and elsewhere continue to face anti-Semitism. Our movement knows this, and will stand alongside them.”



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/04/21/oxford-university-students-seek-to-cut-ties-with-nus-after-anti/


Glad to see people are standing up to these racist Islamist scum