The
players include several perfect archetypes, and the situation is a
classic one: Anti-Israel students engage in "street theater," mimicking
brutal, oppressive Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The victims,
pro-Israel students, are traumatized and believe themselves unable to
stand up for themselves.
The Jewish Press
Published: May 10th, 2013
Published: May 10th, 2013
Najib Hamideh and other Students for
Justice in Palestine bar students entry to Claremont McKenna College
cafeteria in "Israeli checkpoint street theater demonstration," March 4,
2013
Hyper-politicized college student programs dealing with the Middle
East these days often end up as actual or virtual shoving matches
between two ideological camps: those that support Israel and those that
denounce her. Questions about ideology — is Israel defending itself
from terrorists or murdering innocent children — morph into questions
about whether the Israel’s campus advocates, or Israel’s campus enemies,
were the ones to curse, hit, shove, or obstruct, or the ones to lie
about some or all of the above.
We saw this recently at Brooklyn College,
where four Jewish pro-Israel students were booted from a speech
sponsored by a public university on the demand of a single
twenty-something advocate for economic and political warfare against
Israel. That (non) Student for Justice in Palestine organizer had been
given control of the event, the room where it took place, and the
university’s entire security apparatus.
Another story is now unfolding in California, where another public
attack on Israel precipitated contradictory accounts of improper conduct
by Israel’s advocates and enemies.
Because what happened on the ground so quickly and so often becomes
grist for the ideological mill of Israel’s enemies, it’s worth bearing
down to determine as clearly as possible what really happened, why, and
whether it provides any guidance for how to handle future events. There
will be many more. This case is also instructive for seeing who
rallies to which side, and why.
This is the first article in a series looking at a specific incident
that took place at Claremont McKenna College in California, and how and
whether it is possible to tease out what happened and why. PLS CONTINUE READING: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/cockroach-curses-and-jew-hunting-in-california-colleges/2013/05/10/
--
Lori Lowenthal Marcus
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