Stirling University students landslide vote against Israeli crimes

Stirling University students voted yesterday in a REFERENDUM to support the Palestinians’ struggle for their right to education. The votes were 347 FOR, and 88 AGAINST, a margin of almost 4:1 which reflects the growing commitment to solidarity with Palestine among Scottish students. SUSA will now twin with the students council in Birzeit University and pressure the university to twin. It also publicly condemns the occupation, wall and settlers.

The campaign was spearheaded by Scottish PSC members recently returned from a visit to Palestine to see Israel’s illegal occupation for themselves. One of them said, “Our visit to Palestine this summer with the Scottish PSC Solidarity Delegation made us realise that the lies told by our media about the conflict must be challenged, the Israeli troops must leave, the settlers must depart, and the wall must come down. Our victory today has led Stirling University Students Association to condemn all of these illegal obstacles that hinder Palestinians’ right to education. From your friends at SU we send a warm message of solidarity to every Palestinian student in their struggle for the right to education against the gross injustice of the Israeli occupation.”

The Stirling University vote is the SECOND electoral mandate in a year from Scottish students to oppose Israel’s illegal occupation. Glasgow University students’ election of Mordechai Vanunu last December as Rector (students’ representative) was also an explicit repudiation of British government complicity in the ongoing violation of Palestinian national and human rights.

These two votes taken together support our view at the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign that

1. Although elite opinion remains bitterly opposed to Palestinian rights, majority popular opinion everywhere is with us and against the crimes of Israel. Israel is already a pariah state in the eyes of the great majority.

2. WHEREVER WE ARE, it is now possible to win institutional support for the Palestinians’ struggle: students unions, trade unions, community associations, churches, mosques.

3. We in the Palestine solidarity movement need to be more audacious in our commitment to Palestinian rights, and to act in the knowledge that our opponents at ground level are not as strong as we might imagine.

4. Nothing will fall into our lap – we need to campaign in an organised way.

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