The University of Melbourne Student Union has stirred up a fresh legal storm amid claims that it is promoting anti-Semitism as it revived a motion calling for a ban of Israeli institutions.
The original motion, passed in April and withdrawn the next month amid threats of court action, called on the university to divest, boycott and cut ties from “Israeli institutions, researchers and academics who support the Israeli oppression of Palestine”.
The proposed motion has been rewritten and was sent to the student union’s 22 council members on Thursday – with a vote pencilled in for Monday.
On Friday, University of Melbourne student Justin Riazaty, 22, who is represented by Corrs Chambers Westgarth, sent a letter to the student union’s lawyers demanding they do not put the new motion to a vote. He said it was “entirely disrespectful and indeed anti-Semitic” and “inconsistent with the purposes of the union”.
Riazaty, also a member of the student union, said he believed the rewritten boycott motion was “doubling down [on] pure anti-Semitism and hatred”.
In May, Riazaty engaged pro-bono lawyers and sent a letter of demand to the student union, insisting that they rescind and apologise for the original motion.
The student union withdrew the motion on May 26, saying it was “committed to a voice on the Palestinian cause” but did not want its funds to be “unnecessarily spent defending legal proceedings”.
Read the article by Nicole Precel in The Age.