Pro-Palestinian claims wrong: university

• BY:CHRISTIAN KERR AND MITCHELL NADIN 
• From:The Australian 
• April 19, 2013 12:00AM

THE University of NSW has denied claims by pro-Palestinian activists that students were not told a Max Brenner outlet could open on campus when they were asked what new retail outlets they would like to see.

The chocolate chain has become a target for the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which explicitly equates the Jewish state with apartheid-era South Africa.

The Australian yesterday revealed that the group Students for Justice in Palestine had called for a boycott of the outlet on the university's main campus, due to open in June.

Claims have been made in a string of Facebook postings protesting the decision, saying Max Brenner was not mentioned in surveys by the university on campus services.

But a spokeswoman for the UNSW denied the claim yesterday.

"Max Brenner was mentioned by name in the survey," she told The Australian. "It was also strongly preferred as a retail outlet in the follow-up focus group research."

BDS activists claim Max Brenner is owned by the Israeli-based Strauss Group of food and confectionary manufacturers, which produces some rations for the Israeli Defence Force.

They assert this makes the company complicit in what they claim are "Israeli war crimes".

Local management insists it is wholly Australian owned and operated.

Opposition higher education spokesman Brett Mason yesterday accused the BDS movement of promoting an anti-Israeli agenda rather than supporting the Middle-East peace process.

UNSW alumni and doctor David Adler said the campaign being waged by university students against the store's construction was "misguided" and counter-productive.

The 56-year-old, who formally sat on the university's union board of management and also on the faculty of medicine, said it was "totally inappropriate for a uni body to get involved in the BDS campaign", and said the university had taken the correct course of action to continue with the Max Brenner construction.

"It stresses me as a graduate of UNSW, as a university prize winner, that my alumni university campus would be used in this manner," he said.

"Boycotting a party is contrary to the mission of the university and in this particular case will not advance the cause of peace one inch."