EVENT: The Soldier and the Refusnik

The Soldier and the Refusenik

Harvard Hall 201

Wednesday, November 13th, 6-7:30

Come hear Eran Efrati, a former IDF soldier, and Maya Wind, an Israeli activist imprisoned for her conscientious objection to military service, as they share their thoughts and personal experiences on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Visit their website at http://www.soldierandrefusenik.com/ for more details. 

Sponsored by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine and Harvard Divinity School Connect with Palestine

EVENT: Advancing Peace through Environmental Research

Nature Knows No Borders: Advancing Peace through Environmental Research in the Middle East

Come hear graduate student Leila Hashweh share her experiences as a Palestinian environmentalist working for water restoration in Israel-Palestine

Sunday, October 27th

7:00-8:30pm

Hillel

Cosponsored by Harvard’s Progressive Jewish Alliance, J Street U Harvard, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, and The New Israel Fund

Op-Ed from the Crimson: An Open Hillel

Check out PJA's recent op-ed in the Harvard Crimson!
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An Open Hillel

By SASHA JOHNSON-FREYD, RACHEL SANDALOW-ASH, and EMILY S. UNGER

Last week, in an attempt to save money on kosher meals, Harvard University Dining Services put up a sign outside the Hillel dining hall stating that only members and invited guests of the Jewish community should eat there. In response, Hillel’s executive director, Jonah C. Steinberg, asserted that this externally imposed restriction “creates conflict with [Hillel’s] inclusive and welcoming environment.” Indeed, it is true that the Hillel community values the Hillel dining hall as an open space for all regardless of religious affiliation.

However, while this unfortunate situation is HUDS’s fault, not Hillel’s, Harvard Hillel hasn’t exactly proven itself a welcoming space for all in the past week. In fact, Hillel International policies have actively excluded important voices from Hillel—which is deeply disturbing to us, as members of the Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance, a Hillel-affiliated group.

Yesterday, PJA co-sponsored an event entitled “Jewish Voices Against the Israeli Occupation” with the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee. The event featured two Jewish speakers—one Israeli and one American—involved in peaceful activism opposing Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank. The speakers discussed the relationship between their Jewish identity and their present activism, as well as ways in which students going on Birthright could encounter a more diverse array of perspectives on their trip.

Originally, PJA planned to hold this event within Harvard Hillel, believing that the center for the Jewish community on campus would be an ideal location for an event featuring Jewish speakers and dealing with a very salient topic for young Jewish Americans. However, Hillel’s leadership forced us to relocate the event, explaining that according to Hillel International’s “Guidelines for Campus Israel Activities,” Hillel will not “partner with, house, or host organizations that... support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions…against the State of Israel,” which PSC does. This policy prevents not only PSC but also Students for Justice in Palestine, the major Palestinian group on U.S. campuses with chapters at 50 colleges and universities around the country, from ever co-sponsoring events or even speaking in Hillel buildings. While Hillel International claims to “welcome a diversity of student perspectives on Israel” and to “create an inclusive, pluralistic community,” its guidelines encourage exclusivity rather than inclusivity and conformity rather than diversity.

As progressive Jews working for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine, we believe that a Hillel policy that encourages dialogue and collaboration with Palestinian groups is an essential step on the path toward peace. If we cannot reach across the divides of ethnicity, religion, and politics on our own campuses, how can we ever expect Israeli and Palestinian politicians to do so?

Many of those who defend Hillel’s current policy claim that the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement—or BDS for short—is anti-Semitic. However, while some who advocate for this position may be anti-Semitic, the movement as a whole is not. If Hillel allowed its members and the members of PSC to engage and work together, more Hillel students might come to understand, as we have, that PSC members support BDS not out of prejudice but as a non-violent political strategy that aims to change Israeli policies that they find unjust. While PJA does not endorse the international BDS movement—we believe that there are better ways to promote a two-state solution and the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians—the fact that we or others disagree on a political position is hardly grounds for banning that view from Hillel.

Hillel must embrace the values of open discussion in order to be truly pluralistic and serve all Jewish students. As we explained in an open letter to the Hillel community, Hillel International’s current policies exclude not only Palestinian perspectives, but also many progressive Jewish viewpoints, including a wide variety of opinions that are more moderate and mainstream within the Jewish community than the International BDS movement. For instance, Brandeis Hillel rejected an appeal for affiliation from Brandeis Jewish Voice for Peace, because the group had held an “Israeli occupation awareness week” and advocates selective divestment from companies that profit off the occupation. Prominent liberal Zionist Peter Beinart, who supports a boycott of the Israeli settlements as a strategy to pressure Israel to preserve its democratic character, could also be prevented from speaking at Hillel under these policies. Jewish student groups that support his position could be excluded from organized Jewish campus life. As progressive Jews, we do not feel comfortable in a religious and cultural community that maintains such political litmus tests.

In the coming days and weeks, we will be reaching out to students at Harvard and other colleges and universities to petition jointly Hillel International to remove these ideological requirements for affiliated groups, organizational partnership, and invited speakers. We hope that the wider Jewish community will support us as we advocate for a more open and inclusive Hillel.

Rachel J. Sandalow-Ash ’15 is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House. Sasha Johnson-Freyd ’15 is a human evolutionary biology concentrator in Pforzheimer House. Emily S. Unger ’13 is an organismic and evolutionary biology concentrator in Quincy House. They are on the board of the Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance.

An Open Letter to the Hillel Community

The following letter, written by the members of PJA, has been sent out over various Hillel community listservs in response to the recent events at Hillel (outlined in the Crimson article posted below).

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Dear Hillel Community,

We, the Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA), are writing to inform you of something deeply troubling that happened recently. Several weeks ago, PJA—a Hillel affiliated group—began working with the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) to plan a speaker event, “Jewish Voices Against the Israeli Occupation.” As two campus organizations that both work for peace and justice in Israel and Palestine, PJA and PSC often co-sponsor events. We planned to bring an Israeli Jew and an American Jew to talk about their work doing non-violent activism against the Israeli occupation, such as peaceful protests against the demolition of Palestinian homes. The speakers would also discuss how Jewish students going on Birthright could extend their stays in order to visit the West Bank in addition to Israel on their trip. Since this event is explicitly Jewish in nature and directed mainly at Jewish students, we believed that Hillel would be the ideal location for the event.

Initially, Jonah Steinberg (Hillel’s executive director) approved this event and told us that we could hold it in the Hillel building. We believed, after this first conversation, that Jonah had understood that PJA and PSC would be co-sponsoring the event, although we later learned that he had not. Once we put out advertisements for the event, Jonah began receiving complaints about this co-sponsorship, and he expressed uncertainty to us about whether this event could in fact be held in Hillel. Hillel International’s standards of partnership declare that “Hillel will not partner with, house, or host organizations, groups, or speakers that... support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions [BDS] against the State of Israel,” which PSC does. After major donors threatened to withdraw their money from Harvard Hillel, Jonah informed us that the event could no longer take place in the Hillel building.

We are disturbed and saddened by this decision to remove our event from Hillel. As progressive Jews working for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine, we believe that collaboration with Palestinian groups is essential.  We see such cooperation as a step on the path to peace, and we are disappointed that even when Palestinian groups reach out to partner with us, their overtures are rejected by our Jewish community.

The BDS movement is the largest non-violent campaign protesting the injustices of the Israeli occupation. Although we may have disagreements with this movement, we believe it is essential to find common ground and collaborate where we can. Completely shutting out any groups that advocate for BDS cuts off a huge portion of the population that cares about Israel/Palestine, including almost every Palestinian student group across the country. Excluding these ideas from the Hillel building does not make them disappear, but serves only to prevent productive dialogue and alienate people from Hillel. Jewish people who care about peace must frame our disagreements respectfully, allowing for discussion and thoughtful exchange of ideas, instead of putting up barriers to cooperation with others who seek peace.

Hillel International’s policy also excludes some Jews and Jewish groups from Hillel. For example, the Brandeis chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, which advocates for divestment from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation, was recently prevented from affiliating with Brandeis Hillel. We are disturbed to see progressive Jews excluded from Hillels for their political views. Although PJA is not currently in this situation, we feel less welcome and included in a community that sets a political litmus test to determine which Jewish students and groups will be allowed in. Such a community is not one that reflects our Jewish values of social justice and vigorous debate.

Within the Jewish community, boycott calls are becoming more mainstream. Peter Beinart, a well-known liberal Zionist who spoke at Harvard Hillel last spring, recently called for Jews who care about Israel to boycott the settlements as a protest against Israel’s continued expansion into Palestinian territory and the unequal treatment of Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank. Many progressive Jews agree with his position, yet Hillel International’s policies would exclude these voices from its Jewish community. If Hillel truly wants to be “the foundation for Jewish campus life,” it must represent and support all of the diverse views held by Jewish people.

Universities should promote open discussion, critical thinking, and debate, and Hillel should similarly uphold these values—values essential to a democratic society. This, of course, does not mean that Hillel needs to provide space for the expression of racist, anti-Semitic, or otherwise hateful views. However, Hillel must not fall prey to the common fallacy that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. BDS is not an irrational, hate-based ideology—rather, it is a political position that can, and should, be discussed and debated.

Finally, we strongly object to the idea that outside organizations and donors can step in to prevent student-initiated programming in Hillel whenever they disagree with it. Hillel is, and should be, a student-driven community, and students ought to play the primary role in determining its policies and programming. Jonah wrote that Hillel’s Israel policy should be determined by “students, Board of Directors members, and stakeholders.” We wonder who these “stakeholders” are, and why they are given influence over Hillel’s policies equal to that of students. If students’ programming can only go forth according to the whims of Hillel’s donors, Hillel will quickly cease to be a meaningful center for Jewish student life.

In response to these recent events, we conclude that Hillel should have no policy on the political affiliation of groups, organizations, and speakers that it partners with, houses, and hosts. We ask that Hillel International remove its guidelines for Standards of Partnership for campus Israel activities, which currently work to exclude groups and individuals with particular political views from campus Hillels. Regardless of the actions taken by Hillel International, we believe that Harvard Hillel should not establish policies that put in place a political test for its co-sponsorships or affiliated groups. Rather, we hope that Harvard Hillel will lead the push for more inclusive policies on a national level.

PJA and PSC will still be holding the “Jewish Voices Against the Occupation” event—now in Emerson Hall 305 at 7:30pm this Thursday. We invite students from Hillel to attend and to talk to members of PSC, so that Hillel’s current restrictions will not stand in the way of dialogue between Jews and Palestinians on campus.

Most of all, we hope that a broad coalition of Hillel students of all political affiliations can come together in support of more open and inclusive policies. If you have any questions or concerns, members of PJA will be in the Hillel dining hall from 5-7 pm tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday, and would be happy to talk to you. You can also contact Emily, the chair of PJA, at eunger@college.harvard.edu to bring up any thoughts or to find a time to talk about this in person.  

With hope for a more peaceful and inclusive future,
The Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance
Emily Unger
Rachel Sandalow-Ash
Sandra Korn
Eva Roben
Sasha Johnson-Freyd
Elena Hoffenberg
Joshua Blecher-Cohen
Ann Finkel
Virginia Marshall

Jewish Voices Against the Occupation - now in Emerson!

EDIT: Jewish Voices Against the Occupation, the even we're co-hosting with Harvard PSC, is now taking place in Emerson Hall 305, not in Harvard Hillel's Rabb Hall. See the poster below!

EVENT: Jewish Voices Against the Israeli Occupation

Taken in 1973 during a protest outside of the Israeli Embassy

Harvard Progressive Jewish Alliance and Palestine Solidarity Committee are proud to present “Jewish Voices Against the Israeli Occupation” Thursday, November 15 at 7:30 PM in Rabb Hall of Harvard Hillel.  

This event brings together two speakers, Jewish Israeli Noam Lekach and Jewish American Jeff Stein, to speak about the forms of peace activism work they have been engaged in across the Holy Land in the hopes of achieving a more just and more peaceful status quo for Jews and Palestinians. The speakers will reflect critically on the role their Jewish identities and upbringings have played in their activism and how it has informed their understanding of what a “just peace” looks like and how we get there.

They will also be discussing Birthright Israel and the ways Jewish Americans going on this trip can see more than just the mainstream Israeli perspective, as well as practical ways to extend your ticket and get involved in various kinds of peace activism work to get a sense of on-the-ground realities rarely discussed on the trips.

RSVP on the Facebook event here.

SPEAKERS:

Noam Lekach grew up in Israel along the Lebanese border and has been active in peace work for many years. He has participated in campaigns against the targeted evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, marches against the Israeli security fence winding through West Bank villages, and worked as a communications coordinator for Amnesty International's Israel division. Noam is currently working on his BA in Brandeis University where he is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Jeff Stein grew up in a liberal Jewish family in Seattle and recently graduated from Boston University. Earlier this year he went on Birthright Israel but extended his ticket for nearly 5 months to engage in solidarity work in the West Bank, where he supported Palestinian activism against the Israeli occupation and the seizure, confiscation, and demolition of homes and land for Israeli settlement activity.

Screening Budrus in Hillel

Join the Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance for a screening of 

Budrus

Monday, September 10th

6-7:30 pm

Rabb Hall, Harvard Hillel

"This film will single-handedly change how many people view the conflict. It’s that good, and that important." The Boston Globe

"The must-see documentary of the year."  Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times

It takes a village to unite the most divided people on earth.

Budrus is an award-winning feature documentary film about a Palestinian community organizer, Ayed Morrar, who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save his village of Budrus from destruction by Israel’s Separation Barrier. Success eludes them until his 15-year-old daughter, Iltezam, launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to the front lines. Struggling side by side, father and daughter unleash an inspiring, yet little-known, movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that is still gaining ground today. In an action-filled documentary chronicling this movement from its infancy, Budrus shines a light on people who choose nonviolence to confront a threat.

For more information, contact Emily at eunger@college, or visit http://www.justvision.org/en/budrus

Op-ed from The Crimson: The Illuminations of Birthright

My article about Taglit-Birthright Israel was published in The Harvard Crimson yesterday! Text below or online at The Crimson.

The Illuminations of Birthright

By SANDRA Y.L. KORN

This summer, I left North America for one of the first times in my life. On an El-Al jet surrounded by dozens of other Jewish college-aged students, I flew across multiple continents before landing in the Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv to embark on my “birthright”: an all-expenses-paid ten-day trip across Israel.

Unlike Crimson editorial writer Samuel Doniger, my compunctions about travelling to Israel were not about the safety of public buses or the loneliness of Israel’s desert terrain. Rather, I feared what I would learn on the trip: Taglit-Birthright Israel, the organization that currently sends 40,000 students and young adults per year on ten-day tours of the Holy Land, is notorious for its role in influencing the political ideology of American Jews. (After all, Birthright gets much of its funding from the right-wing Israeli government and right-wing American Jews like casino magnate and Romney supporter Sheldon Adelson.)

At first, I was surprised to find that my Birthright trip was less explicitly political than I had feared. Our tour guide, a young Israeli who is also a reserve officer in the Israeli Defense Forces, gave us a thorough and objective history of the Israeli border and otherwise seemed to focus on describing Israel’s tourist attractions, ruggedly beautiful landscape, and Jewish culture.

However, I soon realized that a trip around Israel aimed at fostering Jewish identity cannot avoid politics. From its name—“Birthright” implies that all Jews have the right to the land of Israel, while ignoring the Palestinian refugees who have been prevented from returning home for decades—to its itinerary—which includes ventures into the disputed Golan Heights, where participants gleefully take pictures of the ruined shells of “abandoned” Syrian homes—Birthright advances the political agenda of the Israeli and American right. The fact that it does so in an insidious way makes its messaging all the more dangerous.

As all Birthright trips do, my group travelled to the Holocaust history museum, the Yad Vashem. Most of the museum is centered around a long, dark tunnel with exhibits on each side detailing the horrors inflicted on Jews in Europe. The “light at the end of the tunnel,” the symbolic conclusion of the Jewish saga, is a balcony overlooking Jerusalem. The tour guide at the museum asked us, “Why did God let the Holocaust happen?” One American on my trip dutifully responded, “If it weren’t for the Holocaust, there might never have been a state of Israel.” The existence of a political state hardly seems to justify the extermination of over 10 million innocent people, but this was the message conveyed by the architecture of the Yad Vashem and seemed to be the narrative our tour guides desired us to understand.

At the end of our trip, our tour guide brought us to Mount Herzl cemetery, Israel’s national cemetery. At the area of the cemetery reserved for civilian victims of acts of terror, our guide told us why it was important for us as Jews to support Israel: because “Arabs are different from us,” and teach their children to hate in school. As members of my group supplied other examples of “Arabs” killing innocents—“Syria.” “Iran.” “Al-Qaeda, 9/11.”—we reflected on the necessity of defending Israel from the Palestinians, who, after all, have plenty of Arab brothers and sisters to support them, right?

Throughout the rest of our tour, we spoke to young IDF soldiers who dismissed human rights abuses against Palestinians as a forgivable consequence of a Jewish state. We spoke to older Israelis who informed us that Israel was the only place in the world safe for Jews, invoking the racism that seems to run unquestioned through Jewish Israeli public discourse—one told us, “there could be another Holocaust in America any time. Jesse Jackson, or another one of those black people…” Our trip leader supplemented these interactions with a quip about Israel’s thriving biotechnology industry: “Israel doesn’t have many natural resources, but we do have the Jewish mind.” We posed for a picture atop an old tank, shouting, “Israeli power!” And meanwhile, throughout the entire tour, we were encouraged to return to Israel, to make aliyah.

Zionists look to Birthright Israel as a way to inspire Jewish pride among largely assimilated, ethnically Jewish college students. Even liberal Zionist Peter Beinart, when he came to speak at Harvard last semester, critiqued Birthright only for failing to expose participants to a Palestinian perspective (it’s true: we didn’t speak to a single non-Jew during a full ten days in the Middle East).

But Birthright’s idea of engaging with Israel means supporting an illegal and oppressive military occupation, claiming citizenship to a state that deports African immigrants, glorifying “the Jewish mind,” and decrying all Arabs collectively for their hateful terrorist tactics. Simply introducing a Palestinian voice could not begin to correct for the fact that Birthright is firmly entrenched in right-wing rhetoric, from racism to militarism. If liberal American supporters of Israel truly hope for their children to engage with global Jewish politics in a meaningful way, they should stop sending them on a trip to Israel called “Birthright” and start teaching critical thinking about the role of Jews in promoting justice around the world.

Sandra Y. L. Korn, a Crimson editorial executive, is a joint history of science and studies of women, gender, and sexuality concentrator in Eliot House.

A Postcard from Palestine

Earlier this summer, I traveled around Israel and Palestine, first with Taglit-Birthright and then by myself. I wrote this Postcard from Bethlehem, which was published in the Crimson this week:

An American In Palestine 

BETHLEHEM, the West Bank—Near one of the largest Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, a shop sells postcards with photographs of the separation wall. In one of the pictures, the English phrase “TO EXIST IS TO RESIST” is painted on the Wall.

Picture taken along the separation wall in Bethlehem,
near a Palestinian refugee camp

Just a kilometer away, in downtown Bethlehem, we watch tourists pour out of buses. They are Christian pilgrims, here to visit religious sites like the Milk Grotto, where a drop of milk that fell from the Virgin Mary’s breast turned an entire cave white. We walk into a small store in the downtown market, or souk. The store’s name in English is simply “Nativity Shop”: it is located near the Nativity Church, on the land where Jesus was born. The church is now a major tourist site, at least for those who don’t mind going through a checkpoint to get here.

The owner of the shop is a friend of a friend, so we linger to talk to him about his business, the city, and the weather. He asks me my religion. Cautioned not to tell Palestinians that I am Jewish, I say, “I’m just American.” But here in the Holy Land, religion is of utmost importance; the shop owner presses me for an answer. Eventually, I admit that I am Jewish.

His face breaks into a grin. Handing me a cup of Nescafé, he informs me, “Jewish people are always so shy! If I didn’t want Jews in my shop, I would not sell these!”—he dangles some Magen David charms in front of my face—“or these!”—he shows me some small metal Menorahs.

Later that day, we run into the shop owner again in a restaurant. He pulls me over to the table where he is sitting with two older men in suits, maybe having a business conversation. “This girl,” he asks them, pointing at me, “What do you think she is? Italian? Something else?” “Italian,” nods one. “I don’t know,” says the other.

Leaning back, the store owner shares a smile with me and laughs, pleased. “No! She is American.”

On Tuesday: Conflict and Coexistance

Wish you could have been in Naor Ben-Yehoyada's class this semester but didn't get to take it? Come hear him speak at Hillel on Tuesday!

Conflict and Coexistence:

The Historical Anthropology of Israel/Palestine

talk and discussion with Naor Ben-Yehoyada, Department of Social Anthropology

7-8:30PM on Tuesday, April 10

Smith Hall Harvard Hillel

Hosted by the Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance, http://harvardpja.blogspot.com/

We will discuss how historical anthropology can illuminate the processes that since the late 19th century shaped both conflict and coexistence in Israel-Palestine. The talk will focus on the relationships between land, labor, social structure, colonization, and national consciousness among Jews and Arabs before 1948. We will then see how these dynamics shaped culture and society in Israel to this day. For example, how did the Zionist project transform religious identity and community into national belonging? How were Hebrew, Palestinian Arabic, and other present languages changed and how did they interact in daily life and cultural projects?

Naor Ben-Yehoyada is a Visiting Lecturer and Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies in Harvard’s Anthropology Department, Director of Undergraduate Programs at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and a Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He studies the historical anthropology of region formation in the Mediterranean, and this spring, teaches a seminar on Political Economy as well as a class called Conflict and Coexistence: Historical Anthropology of Israel/Palestine.

Is Peace Possible? TONIGHT!

Join us tonight, at 8:30PM in Emerson 210, for a discussion with Zvilka Krieger of the S. Daniel Abraham Foundation on the question of "IS PEACE POSSIBLE?"

Here's the blurb:

The S. Daniel Abraham Foundation's award-winning interactive multimedia program on the challenges of Israeli-Palestinian peace is coming to Harvard! In a fact-based, balanced presentation, Senior Vice President Zvika Krieger will discuss the specific challenges posed by the issues of Borders and Refugees.

Brought to you by Harvard Students for Israel, with the help of our cosponsors: Harvard Democrats, Harvard Republican Club, Harvard Kennedy School Israel Caucus, Harvard Law School Alliance for Israel, Just Peace at Harvard, and the Progressive Jewish Alliance.

We welcome all students from Harvard and other schools, as well as community members of all stripes, to join us in a civil, thoughtful discussion on how to resolve the tragic cycle of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Politics of Being Fabulous in the Holy Land

Event on Monday!

The Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee & Progressive Jewish Alliance present:

"Tel Aviv Night Clubs & West Bank Checkpoints: The Politics of Being Fabulous in the Holy Land"

Please join us Monday, March 5 at 7:30PM in Sever 103

for a discussion with Sa'ed Atshan, Harvard doctoral student and member of Al Qaws, a grassroots organization of LGBTQ Palestinians throughout Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories who work collaboratively to break down gendered and hetero-normative barries.

He will discuss the various ways in which discourses of LGBTQ rights are deployed strategically by Israel and Palestinians as part of the conflict.

RSVP on Facebook here.

Op-ed from the Crimson: What Anti-Semitism?

Op-ed written by Sandra, published in the Harvard Crimson on February 1:

What Anti-Semitism?

Last semester, McGill history professor Gil Troy visited Harvard’s campus to give a talk entitled “Why I Am a Zionist.” In an article composed the day after the event, Troy wrote favorably about how he was received at Harvard. He contrasted it with about the “common discourse on campus today” about Israel, speaking of “Jewish students harassed and Israel defamed.”

I am not surprised that Troy found a respectful audience for his talk at Harvard. However, I am embarrassed and disturbed that he anticipated otherwise. Of course, there are many students at Harvard who are pro-Palestinian. Of these, many oppose Israel’s continued occupation of the Gaza Strip, desire a two-state solution that allows Palestinian refugees the right of return, and advocate for a boycott of goods produced in the occupied territories or of all Israeli goods. However, Troy’s expectation relies on the assumption (which he has put forth in other articles) that “pro-Palestinian” means “anti-Semitic.” During my time in both Jewish and pro-Palestinian communities at Harvard, I have found this to be both untrue and counterproductive to meaningful discussion.

On a Friday evening in December, before heading to dinner at Harvard Hillel, I strove to protect a flickering candle from the wind rushing through Harvard Square. Along with dozens of other students, I was standing in vigil for Mustafa Tamimi, a peaceful Palestinian protestor who died after being shot in the head by a tear-gas canister fired by an Israeli soldier. As I covered my candle, I looked around at the faces of 50 people—Muslims, Jews, and others. Some were mourning, others were frightened, others were angry. Not a single one was hateful.

Indeed, in both Jewish spaces and pro-Palestinian spaces at Harvard, I have never witnessed anti-Semitism or defamation of Israel. Unfortunately, I am afraid that many tend to use the term “anti-Semitic” to describe anyone who criticizes the policies of the state of Israel.

Like many, I draw my own opinions about Israel and Palestine from my views on oppression and militarism and my desire for universal economic and social equality. As someone involved in peaceful protest on my own campus, I believe there is great power in nonviolent resistance. Of course, not all on campus, or even all at my Shabbat dinner table, agree with me. However, Harvard students, whether sympathetic with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government or with the global movement calling for a boycott of Israeli goods, all want to end unnecessary bloodshed and suffering. And we all know that hatred is antithetical to constructive discussions and peace.

In 2006, Yale University began the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism. The initiative sponsored and directed research on historic and contemporary anti-Semitism until it was ended last June. Many noted that it had become too political and disproportionately focused on Muslim anti-Semitism. An op-ed in the Yale Daily News noted that a conference held by the group, featuring a keynote speech entitled “The Central Role of Palestinian Antisemitism in Creating the Palestinian Identity,” had countered hatred of one kind (anti-Semitism) with hatred of another kind (Islamophobia).

The Initiative has since been replaced by the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, which strives to produce more scholarly research. But the damage was done—Yale’s Muslim community expressed alienation and hurt after the controversial conference. Indeed, when all Palestinians, or all who criticize Israel, are labeled “anti-Semitic,” productive discussions about peace can devolve into hateful accusations.

Of course, anti-Semitism is real and present. In fact, two swastikas appeared on the side of a building near Eliot House last semester. But twelve hours later, they were painted over and all but forgotten by Harvard’s Jewish community: The graffiti seemed to me and other students a bizarre and surprising anomaly, not an indication of widespread, hidden hatred. Additionally, some advocates for Palestinian rights are undoubtedly anti-Semitic, just as some advocates for Jewish rights in Israel are anti-Arab or Islamophobic. But these people are far from a norm among pro-Palestinian advocates.

Accusing those who disagree with you of bigotry precludes constructive academic discussions. In fact, charging Palestinian students or pro-Palestinian advocates with anti-Semitism changes the tone of discussion from political to religious. This often provokes the type of resentment that prolongs conflict instead of resolving it. Unfortunately, comments such as Troy’s and initiatives like Yale’s are more likely to spark anger than remorse among students accused of anti-Semitism.

I would like to assure Professor Troy, and anyone else who might be concerned, that arguments for economic sanctions on Israel do not stem from deep-seated anti-Semitism. I know from personal experience that this is true on Harvard’s campus, and I am assured by others that this is generally true across the globe.

Many current Harvard students will grow up to be the politicians, activists, and donors who shape American policy on Israel. If American academics hope to contribute to productive discussion about Israel and Palestine on campuses, they must first cooperate and not issue unfounded accusations of prejudice.

What is Occupation?: Speaker Event at Hillel

Last week, PJA hosted Oded Na'aman and Simcha Levental from Breaking the Silence and Jenn Blain and Ted Goodnight from Iraqi Veterans Against the War in a speaker panel about the outcomes of occupation.

The event was both interesting and informational, as the four veterans found common themes among occupations by different militaries in different countries.

Crimson article here: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/3/25/harvard-military-naaman-occupation/