Bomb threat fails to hinder University of Queensland student vote for institution to divest from Israel

Students at the University of Queensland have overwhelmingly voted for the university to cut its ties with aerospace giant Boeing and to divest from Israel at a rare vote, despite a bomb threat evacuating campus hours earlier.

A bomb threat has failed to hinder a University of Queensland student vote for the institution to divest from Israel. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Students at the University of Queensland have overwhelmingly voted for the prestigious institution to divest from businesses with alleged links to Israel, despite a bomb threat causing part of the campus to be evacuated hours earlier.

Near 1,000 students, many of whom were wearing keffiyeh scarves, attended the rare Student General Meeting at UQ’s St Lucia campus in Brisbane on Wednesday evening to vote on three motions that called for the university to cut ties with companies supplying arms to the Israel defence force, including aerospace giants Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

The meeting was able to go ahead with some delays after police being called to the campus at 4.42pm due to a bomb threat. The Great Court, which has been home to a Pro-Palestine encampment for the past four weeks, was evacuated as a precaution.

“The University notified Queensland Police after an anonymous report was received,” a UQ spokeswoman said.

“The location of the UQU General Meeting has not been affected.”

Students were still queuing outside when the meeting began at 6.45pm, with a second lecture hall set up for the overflow of meeting attendees.

The motions were initially to be debated by three people from either side, but after only one speaker came forward to speak against, the room voted to make the event procedural. This allowed four students to speak in support of the vote.

“Free, free Palestine” was chanted between speakers.

Students for Palestine organiser Laura Nolan claimed that university research had “helped create weapons directly used against Palestinians”.

“As we meet here tonight, Gaza is under siege,” Ms Nolan said.

“Palestinians are being starved. Palestinians are being bombed, maimed and murdered by Israel and our university, the University of Queensland, is complicit in this genocide.

“We know UQ has countless ties to weapons companies that supply the bombs, the drones, the war planes that are used by Israel.”

Another speaker, Ella Gutteridge, who is both a National Union of Students queer officer and a member of Socialist Alternatives, said students should not be members of the “capitalist machine”.

“I think that students should come to university to learn to make the world a better place, not a worse place,” she said.

“We should not accept that we come here, we keep our heads down, we down, we study, and we go and be quiet worker bees for Australian capitalism.

“Actually, students have the responsibility not to become complicit in the war machine.”

She finished her speech with a chant of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

The only speaker against the motions, Israeli-born student Yonatan Mendels, said multiple statements can be true at once.

“We can be critical of certain actions while also striving for peace and understanding,” Mr Mendels said.

“It is possible to support human rights, Palestinian rights, while also valuing academic freedom, the Jewish rights of self-determination and the desires of peace and prosperity, these are not mutually exclusive.

Mr Mendels said UQ Vice-Chancellor Deborah Terry had told him directly that the university has no ties to Israel.

“I think it’s important that we reflect on what actually is being asked and the question is, should UQ financially divest in Israel?” he said.

“Such a move is, in my view, performative and distracting from the effective actions that we can take to really move this forward.”

Towards the end of his five-minute allotment, attendees began to snicker and laugh.

After the vote in support of the motions, protesters marched on the Chancellery.

A livestream was broadcast by Student for Palestine organisers via Instagram and Zoom, contravening the rules of the Student General Meeting.

The last Student General Meeting at UQ was held in 2019, where a motion was passed against the Ramsay Centre establishing a Western Civilisation degree on campus.