[WHILE IT IS POLITICALLY INCORRECT TO TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT ISLAM, IT IS POLITICALLY CORRECT TO TELL LIES ABOUT ISRAEL.]
By Samantha Rose Mandeles, ALGEMEINER
It’s that time again.
In my office, September is one of the busiest months of the year. My
students, located all around North America, are returning to college.
Almost as soon as they arrive on campus, the stories start pouring
into my inbox. From UC Berkeley to Smith College, from the University of
Central Florida to Arizona State, from Cornell to Tulane, my students
monitor perceptions of Israel throughout their campus communities.
The news is generally mixed. Some students talk of the success and
popularity of their Israel-activism groups, while others tell of
fighting divestment initiatives in student government. Every campus is
different, but my students share a common goal: to educate their
campuses on the facts about Israel, and to fight her demonization
wherever it may be found.
Fighting the “Three D’s” of anti-Israel activism on a college campus is
no easy task. The opprobrium Israel and her supporters face in academic
circles can be especially vicious and overwhelming, but as I tell my
students, that is even more reason to stand strongly against it. Those
who perpetuate lies should be opposed, and forcefully.
When I arrived at Hampshire College in the fall of 2006, I had just
spent a year in Israel; I was tan, ebullient, and full of excitement for
the semester ahead. It had not occurred to me that Hampshire’s name
would soon become associated with some of the worst campus anti-Israel
vitriol in the United States.
Hampshire, a selective, small, private liberal-arts college nestled
in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, is a place where hatred
of Israel was common, judged a socially-acceptable bigotry, and, in some
cases, was required to be accepted in the local social hierarchy.
Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine (HSJP) was formed in 2006,
when I was a freshman. During my first year, the group was not very
active, and I took little notice.
But, then, halfway through my sophomore year, HSJP took off. The
group staged an Israeli Apartheid Week, and built a mock wall on the
main campus quad. They passed out propagandistic literature and accosted
students on their way in and out of campus buildings, to talk about
Israel’s supposed war crimes.
HSJP’s wall in front of the library could be seen from all
directions, and students passed it on their way to and from class. The
first time I saw it, I stopped dead in my tracks in shock, disgusted at
HSJP’s egregious claims. Spotting my open-mouthed incredulity, an HSJP
member approached me and said, “Hi, do you know anything about the
Apartheid wall that Israel is building in the Occupied Territories of
Palestine?”
Disturbed at the biased nature of his question, I pointedly replied,
“Yes, I do, as matter of fact. I know that it is not a wall made out of
concrete. Rather, most of it is simply a chain fence. And I know that
the barrier has nothing to do with Apartheid, but is about keeping
Israeli citizens safe from Arab terror.” The student, with whom I had
never spoken before, looked at me with a raised eyebrow, snorted, and
said, “You must be pretty twisted to believe that shit.” Then he
strutted away, joining other HSJPers who had heard the exchange. They
actually pointed and laughed at me, drawing as much attention as
possible; I was upset as I walked away.
That encounter was certainly not the last, nor the most severe, I
would have with the anti-Israel faction at Hampshire, but it was the
most emotionally unsettling. It was my first taste of the
closed-mindedness, the hostility, and the absolute refusal to engage in
honest self-criticism that characterizes HSJP, and indeed, many other
SJP factions around the country. It shattered my naiveté and introduced
me to the fact that a cause that claims to champion justice and peace,
is really fueled by hatred, bigotry, and social conformity. It made me
angry and determined to fight against the people at Hampshire who
endorsed not only the persecution of Israel, but the mistreatment of
their fellow students on behalf of “Palestine.”
Over the next few years, HSJP gained momentum and publicity as their
behavior became increasingly incendiary. I detailed my observations of
HSJP and my frustration with their nastiness in emails to members of the
Hampshire faculty. I recounted some of the instances where I was
bullied and called names —”racist,” “fascist,” or “crazy”— for
supporting Israel. I reported how HSJP members destroyed the fliers that
I posted advertising a pro-Israel rally I helped to plan, and how once,
a fellow student told me that my love of Israel was helping to
perpetuate genocide.
In October 2008, I attended a live screening of the vice presidential
debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden on campus. I was disgusted,
though not surprised, that whenever either candidate mentioned a healthy
relationship between Israel and the United States, the entire lecture
hall erupted into jeering and booing. Earlier that school-year, a
Jewish, Zionist friend of mine was approached in the Hampshire cafeteria
by a pair of HSJPers, who, without any sort of provocation, began to
loudly sing a Palestinian national song in her face. She told me that
they followed her out of the dining hall, singing at her as loud as they
could.
In 2009, Hampshire SJP members rose to a new level of mendacity. In
February, HSJP erroneously claimed that Hampshire had become the first
American college or university to divest from “the Occupation of
Palestine,” and that the SJP instigated the “divestment.” The Hampshire
Board of Trustees protested that the claim of divestment was incorrect,
and that Hampshire’s investment portfolio continued to contain stocks
from several Israeli companies. SJP still asserts that Hampshire
divested its holdings in companies that “profit from the Israeli
occupation of Palestine.” In February 2010, HSJP posted fliers around
the Hampshire campus proclaiming the first anniversary and subsequent
celebration of “SJP’s historic victory —Hampshire’s divestment from the
Occupation of Palestine.”
Throughout 2008, 2009, and 2010, HSJP participated in anti-Israel
demonstrations in Pioneer Valley town centers. Sometimes they were aided
by SJP branches from the other schools in the area. They also worked
with community groups like the Western Mass Coalition for Palestine. At
these rallies, members of these groups marched, wore keffiyehs, and
chanted slogans advocating violence, like “Long live the Intifada!”
While HSJP members scream and shout into megaphones, compete with one
another to express outrage, and wax poetic about injustice, their
loudly proclaimed commitment to justice and the equal treatment of
others is hollow. They stop short of applying those values to those in
their own community who would dare to disagree with their Manichean
worldview.
HSJP proved this point when they drafted a petition that called for
“solidarity” with the Irvine 11—the 11 UC Irvine students who were
detained for planning the disruption of Michael Oren’s 2010 lecture.
Predictably, HSJP used their solidarity petition as a method of
distorting the issue at hand— from one of a blatant violation of UC
Irvine community norms to one of censorship and the deprivation of
freedom of speech—though it was those very Irvine students who deprived
Michael Oren of the right to speak freely.
Throughout my college career, I watched HSJP’s behavior with
increasing dismay. Since there was no strong, proud, outspoken
pro-Israel group at Hampshire College, I felt that I was mostly alone.
In early 2009, a friend introduced me to the Student Alliance for Israel
at UMass Amherst, and I started working with them to help plan a huge,
proud, pro-Israel rally for peace on an Amherst green.
To help learn how to combat anti-Israel falsehoods on campus, I decided
to apply for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in
America (CAMERA)’s 2009 annual educational trip to Israel. We learned
about the poisonous, hateful incitement against Israel, Jews, and the
West that blankets Arab and Muslim media coverage from Europe to
Pakistan. We saw the hundreds of exploded Qassam rockets that Hamas and
its allies have fired at Israeli civilians with the aim of murdering as
many Jews as possible. We met with Israeli journalists and policymakers
who work tirelessly to forge a more peaceful world for their children.
I spent my final semesters at Hampshire researching and writing my
undergraduate thesis, and trying to figure out how to transmit a strong,
accurate pro-Israel point-of-view on campus. I decided to work with
Sgt. Benjamin Anthony, founder of the organization Our Soldiers Speak,
to bring his message to campus. Sgt. Anthony was going to speak about
what life was truly like as an Israeli soldier, educate students about
the rising anti-Semitism in Europe, and show people why Israel’s
existence as a Jewish state is necessary.
Sgt. Anthony’s event became a cause around which pro- and anti-Israel
groups rallied. About 300 people attended the event, including neutral
Hampshire students who were seeking to learn about the subject.
During the event, HSJP and their friends disrupted Sgt. Anthony’s
remarks, and stood to shout their usual falsehoods. Several times, these
interruptions led to loud confrontations between them and frustrated
Israel supporters. At one point, a Hampshire professor even threw his
lot in with HSJP, tossing a loud, disrespectful remark at a Hampshire
Assistant Dean who was trying to restore order.
Ultimately, Sgt. Anthony overcame the distractions and finished
delivering his talk. And by their vociferous attempts to silence Sgt.
Anthony, HSJP helped make Sgt. Anthony’s point that Israel is being
marginalized and de-legitimized as a nation on college campuses.
My experience with HSJP contributed heavily to the path I chose after
graduating Hampshire. I now work at CAMERA. I’m the Senior Campus
Coordinator, and I’ve spent the last three years educating university
students and helping them to stand up for Israel.
If HSJP strove to convert students to their way of thinking, then
they did the opposite of their goal: by lying, heckling, and bullying,
they not only distanced me from their cause, but made me their staunch,
determined, and active enemy. Now, I spend my days equipping college
students with the facts.
The most important thing I have learned at CAMERA is to refuse to be
meek and be quiet. Israel supporters on campus and elsewhere must show
the world that we will “not go gentle into that good night.”
As a wise colleague of mine once said, “The moment you allow a
falsehood to go unchallenged, you legitimize the purveyors’ ridiculous
claims. You allow them to win without even having to lift a finger.”
HSJP taught me this truly valuable lesson: that those of us who care
about truth — about Israel — should never let them win.
Samantha Rose Mandeles is CAMERA’s Senior Campus Coordinator in Boston. Follow her on Twitter at @DaughterofTsion
Posted by Ted Belman
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