Middle-East bunfight

Finally we came to the piece that everyone had been waiting for and friend and foe alike sharpened their sickles and closed in for the kosher kill as Beckford/Robinson moved that "VUWSA recognises that the Israeli Government and Arab Governments deny the rights of the Palestinian people and believes that a free, democratic and secular Palestinian state should be created". Gyles Beckford said that our present policy had been confused since 1974 and that it was time we had a logical policy which should be firmly on the side of the oppressed Palestinians who had been driven from their land and denied political rights. He thought it was absurd that he, as a New Zealand Jew, was entitled to migrate to Israel and be granted automatic citizenship whereas many Palestinians who were born in the area a did not have this right, However, he stressed criticism of the Israeli Government and not of the Jewish people, and that it was important that we be anti-Zionist but not anti-semitic.

Bruce Robinson outlined some of the ways in which Palestinians living in Israel are discriminated against as well as the fact that Palestinians living in nearby Arab countries are also treated badly. The only solution for the Palestinians was the establishment of a free, democratic, secular state such as proposed in the motion.

Much of the ensuing discussion on the motion centred round the definition of a "free democratic and secular Palestinian state" It transpired that there were nearly as many people being particularly confused as to the boundary of the proposed state. The movers of the motion eventually attached a note to the motion explaining that the state in question would be in the area of the 1919 mandate for Palestine. Several speakers then opposed the motion and favoured the creation of a Palestinian state to exist alongside the slate of Israel However the motion remained as it was and was eventually passed 48 to 44.

In the dying minutes of the meeting it was decided "that VUWSA support and provides the publicity for the demonstration and rally at Parliament on September 19 against the findings of the Royal Commission and the general attacks on women made by this government"

—David Hedge.