The Hicks Building occupation embodies the best and worst of student protest action.
The idealism of supporting people in a war-torn country is laudable, but making daft demands demeans the idealism.
Asking the University to condemn Israeli actions in Gaza is unfair.
The University is an educational institution, not a political one. It should confine its policies to what happens on its own campus, not go around making foreign policy announcements.
Students are perfectly free to hold peaceful protests on the concourse as long as they keep their statements to the facts and don’t vindictively criticise another group.
To be fair to the majority of the pro-Palestine activists, they have protested about Israeli policy without breaking into anti-Semitism.
The Union of Students is a political body. If the protesters want a statement made by them then that’s perfectly reasonable.
The University, however, is a collection of buildings with lecturers in them and should confine its self to dealing with that.
Occupying a couple of lecture theatres seems a bit weak; the point of a sit in protest is to disrupt people’s day-to-day life so they are forced to negotiate with you.
All the current occupation accomplishes is publicity, which begs the question: why not just protest outside on the concourse or another public place?
Demanding scholarships, donations, and University partnerships with the occupied territories is fine; everyone wants to give the underprivileged a hand.
But why just Palestine? Why not Iraq? Citizens there live with explosions, gun attacks, and ruined infrastructure.
Perhaps Palestine has become a bit of a pet project at the expense of other worthwhile causes.
The NUS Conference is coming up and it would have been an ideal time for our delegates to speak in support of pro-Palestinian proposals.
However, because Dave Hurst forgot to submit our Union’s proposals to the conference our delegates aren’t allowed to speak on any proposals.
Even if the University did decide to get involved it is highly unlikely that they would have any effect on Israeli policy.
I can’t see Ehud Olmert saying: “The condemnation of much of the world is one thing, but now the University of Sheffield has weighed in I’ll have to stop the bombing. I mean, Eddie Izzard went there.”
Symbolic protests may make the participants feel better and raise publicity. But the situation in Gaza isn’t exactly off the news agenda and most people already have entrenched views on it.
Even if the University gave into their demands it would make little difference to the Palestinian situation.
If the protesters had put on some fundraising events for charities working in Gaza then they would have made at least a small difference to the people living there.
The only real outside influences on Israeli policies are the purse strings of the US State Department, and harassing the University won’t affect this one iota.
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