Malia Bouattia has done it again.
By making an executive decision to disenfranchise Jewish student societies in the NUS’s anti-racism committee, the NUS’s controversial president has further alienated members of the minority.
Even before she clinched power – sparking a ferocious wave of disaffiliation campaigns – Malia was railing against the “Zionist” establishment, displaying an ability to rile Jewish usually reserved for members of the Labour Party.
Here are her five “best” moments:
This charming blog post from 2011, when Bouattia was studying at the University of Birmingham, keeps cropping up to do the rounds.
She made ominous reference to her alma mater’s large and well-organised J-Soc.
She called the institution “something of a Zionist outpost” and spoke of the local Jewish society being under the thumb of “Zionist activists”, who did “Orwellian” things like try to eradicate anti-Semitism.
An easy target, on account of being totally vague. Nonetheless, Bouattia raised the spectre of shady Jews controlling the world’s media at an event in 2014:
The footage was pulled from YouTube, but was saved by a concerned onlooker, who later passed it to The Tab.
Attention had temporarily shifted from alleged NUS anti-Semitism, even if only for a few weeks – but Bouattia managed to snatch it back on Monday.
She forced through a motion about who gets to sit on the NUS’s anti-racism and anti-facism committee, which has seven members including a Jewish one.
Rather than an old system, where the NUS consulted with Jewish groups to make their pick, Bouattia supported a new amendment which meant she and her NUS pals would choose instead.
The vote of the national executive committee was a tie… so Bouattia got to decide.
On the eve of her election as president, Bouattia was sent an open letter signed by more than 300 Jewish students asking for reassurance in light of her past positions.
Her response accused the Jewish students of misconstruing her views on purpose as a cynical attack ploy, which in turned prompted its own response marking “a nadir in the Jewish relationship with the student movement.”
Earlier this year, The Telegraph caught Bouattia claiming that shadowy “Zionist and neo-con lobbies” were behind the government’s Prevent anti-terror strategy.
The program, designed to stop extremism, includes demands on universities to monitor radicalism and block hate speakers – usually Islamic extremists.
It has been widely criticized by free speech activists – but seldom accused of being a front for international Jewry.