Picture Perfect

The Jewish Chronicle will run the story tomorrow, when they go to the publishers.
The Evening Standard, a national paper, ran the story twice: once in their morning edition of the paper, and once in the final evening edition. In the morning paper, it featured on page 17 with the headline "Israel murdered 800 children, Student Union tells Freshers." In the evening, it was on page 27 and the headline read "Student Union accuses Israel of murdering 800 children."

I was further informed The Jerusalem Post was interested in running the story. I expect The Guardian will run the story some time this week, though that's a bit optimistic.

In terms of media coverage, I and the team I was part of managed to do what last years Jewish Society committee failed miserably in: succeeding. I was the sole spokesperson (and still am) for the J-Soc, speaking on their behalf. My ammendments to the letter we sent to the SU were also included in there, though it was more political spin than things of substance.

There will be a full enquiry as to why the letter got sent out, saying the things it did, in the first place.

At long last, things are settling down.

Oh, hello. Nice of you to pop in. I'm sorry I haven't been posting anything, I haven't really had the time. There've been several new developments, though...

At the moment, I'm dealing with what I'm calling the 'Freshers Letter Scandal' - a violent e-mail on the Israel-Palestine conflict sent out to all new students of the 2007/8 academic year at the London School of Economics, which I and others maintain was not constitutional and very bad politics.

I personally believe that the people responsible for the e-mail should resign from ther positions as they've failed miserably to "serve and represent," as the Student Union motto says. They were not representing the student body, but their own extreme views. Further, there were several constitutional and protocol breaches, which we were investigating and has now been handed over to the Constitutional & Steering Committee (C&S) at the LSE SU. 

They're hoping that by saying sorry, it will all go away. But it won't. The problems within the system need to be fixed and that is now our aim.

As such, i've been working day and night (literally) with a great (and sometimes not so great) bunch of individuals to bring justice to these sordid affairs. I'm findig the Politics Officer job at the Jewish Society (JSoc) is very high profile (moreso than the chair, as they are less well placed to make political statements on the J-Soc's behalf) and a full time job.

I've been working with the chair of the Israel Society and other interested individuals in order to co-ordinate our responses to the issue (my idea!! heh heh). I've been dealing with information (masses of information in fact) from the Israeli embassy, who have taken an interest in this issue. I've been interviewed by local Jewish press on this issue as well as the BBC World Service (the person interviewing me at the time didn't actually know I was the JSoc politics officer; he was just stopping people randomly. Interesting too, that he was the second and last signatory to the letter and is the Palestine Society chair (as well as the Mature and Part-Time students' representative on the SU committee). The Evening Standard have been lobbying the Student Union on the issue too, so they may quote me at some point... I'll let you know when to look out for me and where!

Obviously, I'm being quoted left, right and centre in the student media. I've also been threatened with legal action for saying the letter "at worst may cause anti-Semitism or be construed as anti-Semitic, at best being very bad politics, inflammatory and completely unnecessary." Based on my limited studies on libel and slander last year (don't forget I actually have a degree in law and anthropology to work on too) they don't have a case against me at all (I was mindful of legal action when writing a response), so no worries there. 

I've been building a team of political officers to help me on these and other issues too. They've been split up into diplomacy (building links with other societies), UGM (keep an eye on Union General Meeting motions - the stuff of student politics - for me and to file our own motions) and writers (not able to make statements on behalf of the society, whose job it is to help change the political atmosphere on campus).

I've also got someone to take over the website from me (http://www.lsejsoc.co.uk) as I don't really have the time or inclination to update it.

But that's just local to the LSE...
I'm also on the London Region Committee of the Union of Jewish Students, who are essentially a union of the Jewish societies across the nation (as the name suggests). It falls to me to help create and organise events for those Jewish students in the London region (some of you may have seen the giant inflatables on facebook...those were some of the fruits of the efforts of the UJS and London Region Committee (LRC) people. As it happens, we're currently organising the London bal, which is taking place somewhere in Feb 2008. It's actually black tie, and is gonna be great.

I've also been going to presentations of law firms. My last (and first) one was with Linlaters (whom I really liked) and my next is tomorrow with Clifford Chance (whom I can tell I will like a lot less). I don't think I endeared myself to Linklaters though when I responded to "I wouldn't lie" with "I don't know that, you're a lawyer..." Luckily, I said it to a lowly trainee and not a partner of the firm, who took it really well and said "well, that's true" though she blushed slightly (indicative of her lie, perhaps? I'm sure she was well briefed on what to say though. I noticed the partners asked me the same questions too [what other firms have you been to and what are they doing?]. There was definite co-ordination going on).

Linklaters attitude was "you're the possible new face of the company. We want you and will help you. You've nothing to lose by trying. Feel free to talk to our trainees and partners and by the way, watch our video too."

Clifford Chance's attitude [via their e-mails] was more "We don't need you. Who do you think you are? We're massive. You're tiny. We're holding an event for you and BY GOD you should be pleased with it. We're going to spend our time talking at you for a whole hour."

I'm also looking into PR firms. Of course, my brother's girlfriend, who shall remain nameless, worked for a massive PR firm - which shall remain nameless - and told me how they operate there andI was NOT pleased about what they do there.

I was talking to a girl doing straight law, and she's totally into the whole selling yourself to massive law firms and clawing your way to the top. I don't want that. I don't want hours and hours in the office. I want to enjoy life too. I want to travel. I want to do thing. Money isn't everything to me, neither is prestiege. I just want to earn enough to live comfortably and to travel. That is all. Oh, and be a journalist. I'd love to do that too.

                    So, that's what I've been doing and why there's been no blog recently. Stay tuned for the next blog!