NUS candidate disqualified over ‘Isis leader trained by Israel’ post
Zeid Truscott was running for a seat on the NUS national executive committee when posts were discovered
A student running for a role in the National Union of Students has been disqualified from the election following “antisemitic” social media posts.
Zeid Truscott was running for a seat on the NUS national executive committee, which is the main scrutiny body for NUS’s political leadership.
Chief returning officer Jules Mason tweeted this afternoon: “Unfortunately, despite being informed of the potential of disqualification, a candidate has not complied with my ruling in respect to a complaint made about them concerning antisemitism whilst a candidate.
“I have disqualified the candidate – Zeid Truscott – from this year’s NUS NEC block of 15 election.”
Several messages allegedly sent by Truscott were discovered by the Twitter account The Golem, prompting the Union of Jewish Students to demand an apology.
A Facebook post linked back to an article suggesting Isis leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was trained by the Mossad.
Among the other posts discovered, a tweet from last year said: “Just your daily reminder that Israel is a racist, apartheid state. Founded on ‘divine right’ and created through terrorism and ethnic cleansing.”
Another tweet claimed the IHRA definition of antisemitism is “anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab.”
Another message reads: “Some of the IHRA examples (Israel being a racist endeavour) aim to silence Arab lived experience and sideline oppression of Arabs.”
A spokesperson for UJS said: “We welcome the news that Zeid Truscott has been prevented from running for NUS NEC.
“Truscott peddled antisemitic conspiracy theories borrowed from the far right, such as that Israel trains ISIS, and opposed the IHRA definition, removing Jewish students’ right to self-define racism against us.
“Truscott has repeatedly refused to apologise or recognise their comments as antisemitic, instead further doubling down. We are grateful that NUS has sent a clear message that candidates who propagate antisemitic conspiracy theories are not fit to represent students.”
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