Monash Students have voted to pass three resolutions relating to Israel’s war in Gaza at a Student General Meeting this week.
The vote occurred in the Campus Centre Dining Hall at 2pm on Tuesday and after an hour where speakers on both sides debated the ethics and impact of the conflict and student vote, the resolution passed with a final count of 450 yay’s to 43 nay’s.
The proceedings were not without issue however with a student being ejected for repeated harassment of Israeli speakers and as many as 10 others warned about their conduct.
Members supporting the motion were mostly made up of members of the Monash Palestinian community as well as members of Students for Palestine and its parent organisation Socialist Alternative. Numerous members of the RMIT Socialist Club were in attendance as voting members as they “still have a student number despite not going to Monash in years”.
Those standing against the motion were made up of members of the Monash Israeli immigrant and Jewish communities. Speakers recounted stories of loved ones being vilified, wounded and killed in the fighting back home which was met with boos, and chants calling on the “end to the Israeli State”.
These calls fell silent as a speaker who preferred to remain anonymous presented photos of their cousin who is now permanently disabled after being hit by a Hamas RPG “you claim you care about justice but are silent when we speak of our own suffering” they said whilst holding back tears “how dare you say you value human life”.
Due to the repeated interruptions from known members of Socialist Alternative three Israeli speakers were unable to speak as the SGM constitution required the meeting to be suspended during outbursts by students with the vote needing to commence at exactly 2pm.
As these interruptions occurred the Student General Meeting Chair Joshua Walters addressed each offending member by name. When approached after the meeting he mentioned it was not the first time they had experienced this kind of interaction with the offending members.
The Student General Meeting was held after over 900 Monash university students signed a petition calling on The Monash Student Association to vote on a number of resolutions in a Student General Meeting.
The agenda for the Student General Meeting was for students to vote on the following resolutions:
- The MSA, on behalf of the students at Monash University Clayton Campus, supports an immediate and just end to Israel’s war on Gaza. This means stopping the bombing, a permanent withdrawal of Israeli Troops, an end to the 18 year blockade, and reparations to be paid for the reconstruction of Gaza.
- The MSA calls on Monash University to reveal and cut ties with companies and institutions involved in the development and manufacturing of weapons used by the IDF against the Palestinian people.
- The MSA will make representations on behalf of students by bringing resolutions [1] and [2] to the attention of the Vice-Chancellor and the General Manager of Monash University.
At the time of publication MSA has yet to publicly announce the result of the vote or contact students in relation to the SGM. They have also not responded to questions about their lack of update.
This silence follows a trend with University Student Unions such as RMIT’s RUSU electing to minimise the visibility of all discussions on the issue of Palestine by only publishing the minutes to the Student General Meeting on their website.
This caution likely stems from an incident at the University of Melbourne, where a Postgraduate law student Justin Riazaty engaged in legal action against the University of Melbourne Student Union. The Union settled the case by ricending the motion and paying legal costs.
