September 19, 2008
Posted by yaman
Racism is part of the problem in Israel-Palestine, not the solution
Tikvah Students for Israel’s false accusations that SJP members are behind hateful vandalism at UC Berkeley exacerbate campus tensions and endanger students on campus rather than defuse the situation
Anybody who has studied the Israeli occupation of Palestine knows that supremacist arguments and narratives frame much of the dissent against and support for Israeli state policies. These points of view cover the range from some Israeli ministers who believe that all Arabs should be kicked out of Israel and the West Bank, some people who believe that all Jews in Israel should return to Europe, and even those who believe that Jews and Arabs inherently cannot mix and must live segregated from one another.
Approaching Israel and Palestine from a perspective that is not rooted in one of these racist points of view is essential to, first of all, finding hope in human resilience and resistance against systems of oppression, as well as finding a place where principled activists can situate themselves vis-á-vis US support for Israeli state policies regardless of their backgrounds.
With that said, yesterday evening a hate crime occurred on the UC campus when pro-Israel propaganda at a bus stop was tagged with a swastika. Nobody should accept these kinds of hateful messages, regardless of who they come from. As somebody who passed by this particular sign on more than two occasions last night, I can attest that the two messages that were on the board were likely not placed by the same person. On my way to a student government meeting around 8:45PM, I passed by the board and noticed that it was tagged with the phrase “Free Palestine.” On my way out only about a half an hour later, I noticed that a swastika was added below the message. What this indicates to me is that these are two separate messages, possibly added by different people, at different times– maybe even somebody trying to frame a connection that does not exist between the two messages.
In the unlikely case that somebody actually believes that drawing swastikas on bus stop ads is an appropriate response to the occupation of Palestine, or that such a person believes an act like this to be in line with the perspectives of anti-apartheid activists, then I have to unequivocally exclaim that such a person would have totally misapprehended the nature of Israeli state policies, as well as the nature of the anti-apartheid movement. Racism is part of the problem in Israel-Palestine, not the solution. Anti-Jewish expressions and sentiments are absolutely not in line with the principles of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and they do nothing to address modern political problems in Israel and Palestine.Â
The reason I am impelled to say these things publicly is that a small number of individuals affiliated with Tikvah Students for Israel have, without any proof whatsoever, engaged in a defamatory, slanderous and libelous campaign against members of SJP accusing our organization of perpetrating this crime. These people must have never been to an SJP meeting or event, as these allegations are clearly based on a wildly inaccurate perception of our organization, our members, and our anti-racist values. They are targeting SJP because it is the only organization on campus that critically focuses on Israeli policies that involves both Jews and Arabs and Israelis and Palestinians (as well as many other people). By attacking SJP, they believe that they can discredit our organization and sabotage Jewish-Arab cooperation on this issue.Â
More disturbingly, however, is that without any evidence members of Tikvah are trying to peddle a connection between SJP and anti-Semitism on campus. In an atmosphere that is understandably angry and emotional after a hate crime incident like this, these kinds of unfounded and irresponsible accusations only create a more dangerous environment for members of SJP on campus, and members of Tikvah should absolutely refrain from trying to direct anger at these hate crimes towards members of SJP who had nothing to do with it. Given that Tikvah is an organization whose thuggish behavior and right-wing politics is very much out of line with the views and values of the mainstream Jewish community on campus, it is not surprising that it must desperately exploit fear and anger in order to recruit members. However, this behavior is dangerous, and it must stop immediately as cooperative efforts are made to defuse tensions like these rather than exacerbate them.
23 Comments
September 19, 2008
As a Jew, I would like to say that I fully support Yaman’s words. Racism should have no place in our society and will never bring peace and justice to the Israeli and Palestinian people. Finally, I want to say that thoughtful, indepth, nuanced coverage of this issue and others needs to be published *somewhere* and it is not happening in our current media establishments. I hope someone can launch an independent, alternative, progressive media outlet because we desperately need one.
September 19, 2008
I think there is a bigger problem here than an alternative media outlet, and that is the fact that there is an issue of race that is occurring on the U.C. Berkeley campus and the only way it is being fixed is by pointing fingers at easy targets. Tikvah has continuously had a problem with SJP, and for them to blame SJP members is not only unsurprising, but dangerous. They pretty much are saying, “Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism” which is exactly what that graffiti says. By fighting racism, with more racism, it makes me wonder what Tikvah is really all about. And on top of that, what a terrible way to promote Israeli culture and Judaism. Not only am I disturbed, but frankly, I’m worried.
September 20, 2008
Frankly, the problem with Tikvah is that its core founding members act more like they’re out to get SJP than to do any positive messaging about Israel, or to convince people to support Israeli policies. Nobody in SJP really cares if an organization works to popularize its own political opinions, just as SJP does. That is the point of campus organizing, and every group has the right to do that. What we have an issue with is an organization whose cause d’etre apparently is to bully us out of existence by intimidating our members. We don’t disturb Tikvah events, we don’t verbally assault and harass their members on campus, we just leave them alone to do whatever the fuck they want to do. I wish they’d do the same for us, because SJP does not organize against anybody on campus. We have our own political agenda dealing with American foreign policy in Israel/Palestine, and that is what we focus on. Not squabbles with other campus groups.
September 20, 2008
that would all be nice, but as you suggest, their rason d’etre is to “bully us out of existence by intimidating our members.” Israel, as a state, gets away with what it gets away with in Palestine because it has a total monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and it sustains that monopoly, in no small part, by maintianing a correspondingly total monopoly on discourse around its activities here in the US. our campus is like a little petri dish for america at large, the difference being that at a place like cal, things occur in the realm of specifics and not that of generalities. somegroup like Tikvah has to come into existance with precisely such a cause d’etra because our existance challenges that monopolization of discourse. Those core members will have to behave as they do as long as Israel has no choice, as it constantly states, to collectively punish Palistinians in Palistine for the affrontery of having been born and having a culture.
September 20, 2008
this reminds me a bit of the logic of lynching: if a white woman was raped, and a black male was in the vicinity, he must obviously be behind it. So similarly, if someone tags a poster with a swastika, it must be the nearest arab, right? because arabs just have an obvious inclination to act this way. And since SJP only has arabs, apparently, the case is closed.
September 21, 2008
Hi All,
What I am really bothered by is this hate crime. This is a hate crime against Jews and Israel (and so, against me), on our campus.
Why are we talking about SJP-Tikva struggles? Is this really the issue?
I agree fully that Tikva’s attempt to deal with race with more race is highly problematic.
But I also think that SJP’s tactic of pointing back at Tikva for drawing the swastike, and even denying that there is antisemitism and/or antiIsraeliness on campus is extremely problematic as well.
I think, and I told Yaman that too, that SJP needs to address a very difficult moral question: The fact that a hateful swastika was drawn on a pro-Israeli ad following a (non-hateful) “free Palestine” brings to front the question of the responsibility one has for the racist interpretation of their ideology. Every Zionist has to deal with this question, btw.
And we all need to discuss racism in this campus, which affects all of us (affiliated or not) rather than focus our debate on rivalries between groups of activists.
September 21, 2008
Yael, please re-read Yaman’s post, and you will see there isn’t a single word in there about denying antisemitism on campus or pointing the finger back at Tikva. Yaman and the rest of us are being very precise and careful in our responses to this, so please don’t misrepresent us.
As for the “the responsibility one has for the racist interpretation of their ideology” – I don’t have any idea who drew that swastika or what their ideology is, so I don’t exactly see how we are responsible for that. Aas a zionist, do you feel responsibility for any anti-arab actions, whther or not they have any connection to zionism? even if they are connected to zionism, are you responsible for every Kahanist or some other nutcase? This has absolutely nothing to do with us. Tikva are both playing on anti-arab stereotypes and blaming the jews in our organization for anti-jewish hate crimes, which is blaming the victims.
September 21, 2008
Tom, and Yaman
My interest in this affair is 1) a concern that letting this slip into “who did it” politics masks the fact that it was actually done by someone – a serious thing; and more importantly 2) i’m interested in the question of the responsibility of ideology to the violence done in its name.
This is the original issue i was interested to discuss with you. There is no easy “solution” to this question, but it is nonetheless one that everyone with an agenda must address. Zionizts including. It takes up energy to deal with this question, but so does all the pointless arguing with tikva. I think that thinking about this question serves better ends. When asking SJP to address this question I am not attempting to accuse SJP of “generating” the crime, but only pointing out to a difficult issue SJP may have not yet addressed. An issue it is easy to brush off and claim to be irresponsible for (like the Israeli policy makers you rightfully criticize).
In regard to cahanists’ racism in the name of Zionism – i am definitely not responsible of the crime itself but of course I need to address this, since the association cahanists make between Zionism and racism projects on what zionism is. I therefore need to reframe zionism so racism cannot be made using zionism as a justifying ideology. Just saying “but its not me” does not help here, i’m afraid, since as you know zionism is associated with racism on the bases of cahanist (and other) rhetoric and actions. i’m sure SJP does not want this to happen to it!
September 21, 2008
Yeal, I don’t think the analogy you make between SJP and Israeli policymakers makes any sense. Israeli policymakers have access to a variety of media, they have control over the army, they influence the education system, etc. SJP does not have any direct influence over random people who draw swastikas. In the same way, you could continue reframing zionism every day, and various settlers conducting their regular pogroms in Hebron/al-khalil will still continue acting the same way, since they don’t know who Yael from Berkeley is.
As an organiztion we are definitely concerned about anti-jewish sentiments and we do discuss ways of making sure our message isn’t interpreted that way, but none of that has anything to do with this incident. We are as responsible for it as you are.
September 22, 2008
“…all the pointless arguing with tikva.”
Yael, your capacity to say such a thing, and to employ a word like “pointless,” depend entirely on the fact that you aren’t a target of the harassment (read: psychological and emotional violence) that tikva’s core members seem addicted to meeting out.
Talking back, from the position that active sjp members hold as obstacles to the Israeli government’s advocates’ (tikva’s) goal of monopolizing Palestine/Israel discourse here on campus, is an act of resistance to that psychological and emotional violence.
But hey, maybe nobody who identifies with the cause of Palestine should be allowed to resist, verbally or otherwise. Abject submission would certainly make the job of occupiers (and apologists) a whole lot easier.
September 23, 2008
You haven’t stated any evidence for your accusation that Tikvah blames SJP.
Whats the source?
Rumors?
Instinct?
Anything tangible?
I haven’t heard anything of the sort, so I’m curiouys where you are getting your info.
And you seem so sure that two differnet people tagged the sign. Just wondering. Were you one of them?
And if so, what tag are you responsible for?
September 23, 2008
Micha, besides the reports of one Daily Cal reporter, the Dean of Students, and numerous other individuals in the community who reported the slanderous claims to me, here are three comments left on Facebook by founding members and current organizers of Tikvah accusing SJP of being responsible. I blurred out names and photos for their privacy:
September 23, 2008
And I quote [edit by yaman: sorry Sarah, I edited your comment to remove his name for privacy even though it was a public forum] via Facebook (thanks to a good friend)
“swastikas were drawn on the signs outside Eshleman. this is after the sign was cleaned following the first vandalism. the act was committed while people were in ASUC senate discussing Israel. several members of SJP came into the senate chambers during the time when the vandalism occurred. the word “Jews” was also crossed out, along with the word “Israel.” the SJP members were confronted about the vandalism, but they just denied it. we called Berkeley Police Dept. to come make a report of the hate crime. when the police arrived, the crowd of SJP people and their friends ran inside. guilty perhaps? photographs were taken of the vandalism and media outlets will be informed. let’s hope we can combat these hate crimes and show the campus and world that this is unacceptable. jews who donate to berkeley should be aware of how the campus handles this and reconsider their support.”
September 23, 2008
no, thanks for doing that. i was just going to email you to ask you to do the same thing, i thought i had put in a blank space. sorry! i don’t want anyone in all this nonsense getting harrassed.
September 23, 2008
By the way, you are also doing the same thing you accuse Tikva of doing. Just because certain people affiliated with Tikva have accused SJP doesn’t mean the group has. In fact, if anything you seem to be using this opportunity to attack Tikvah, which is kind of twisted given that the only issue here should be condemning anti-Semitic graffiti.
September 23, 2008
D2: No, I’m not. I consistently referred to “members of Tikvah” and a “small number of individuals.” Immediately after the anti-Semitic graffiti, I was confronted by two leaders of Tikvah who were yelling and screaming at me on campus accusing me and the people I was with of posting the graffiti. That was with no proof whatsoever, based only on their racist perceptions of us.
I posted my post on Friday morning, before I knew about the threats in 145 Dwinelle against SJP members, but what I predicted would happen in my blog post was completely correct: because of the irresponsible campaign by Tikvah leaders to accuse SJP, they created an unsafe environment for our members on campus and somebody left a threat to us on the wall in 145 Dwinelle.
Here are pictures:
If Tikvah as a group doesn’t want to be associated with this campaign, then its other members are free to criticize its leaders for presenting the image that it’s speaking for the group, and for encouraging this sort of vandalism and intimidation on campus.
September 23, 2008
What does this have to do with racism? Since when was SJP a racial group? I thought its members were diverse?
September 24, 2008
To those whose comments are not appearing: if you do not leave a valid e-mail address, then I will not approve your comment. If you do not leave a valid e-mail address and attach your name to an allegation or claim that you are making, then I will not approve your comment. If you leave a valid e-mail address and I do not approve your comment, I will e-mail you explaining why. If you do not use your name or leave an e-mail when you leave a comment, then I cannot explain to you why, and will not leave a comment that makes claims without any supporting evidence.
September 24, 2008
I’m a non-Hebrew speaker, can someone translate the 2nd picture in Yaman’s comment? All I see is “p gamma” at the end, but I’m pretty sure yaman’s not posting pictures of math jokes.
September 24, 2008
NHS, it says “am yisrael chai,” which I was told is a nationalist slogan that means “the people of Israel live.”
September 25, 2008
Micha, I’m sure there are plenty of decent people within Tikvah who honestly believe that attacking us is a way of genuinely combatting anti-jewish sentiments. There are some critics of Zionism and Israeli policies who are anti-jewish, but the current leardership of Tikvah is unwilling to accept that criticism of either can ever be legitimate. We have offered to meet with them, asked them to read our flyers calling for justice and equality among Israelis and Palestinians etc. etc., but there doesn’t seem to be any way of reaching them or other Tikvah members.
Some of this is based on misperceptions: for example, we sometimes use a map we created of historical Palestine on Sproul to signify that we want to recognize the history of the destruction of Palestinian villages by Israel in 1948 (the map has a hook for every village). The last time we did this we put up a sign stating clearly that this was a map of historical Palestine, not a call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel/Palestine. We also handed out a flyer saying similar things. But people continue spreading the lie that the map is a proof of our “secret wish” to throw Israelis into the sea (including our own relatives and friends!). There doesn’t seem to a way of stopping them from spreading this slander.
There is no necessary connection between criticism of zionism and anti-semitism. Up to the middle of the twentieth century most jews in the world weren’t zionists, for a whole variety of reasons. Denying us Israelis the right to even debate a non-zionist future is truly denying our right for self-determination.
October 9, 2008
With friends like Blue Star PR, Israel doesn’t need enemies. The Berkeley Daily Planet made the grievous error of publishing a sympathetic story about local reaction to an incident in which graffiti were applied to a Blue Star poster advertising Israeli-Arab coexistence at a campus bus stop. Some of our readers wrote to us complaining that the story was too soft on Israel.
We published their opinions. We have a policy of not censoring opinions just because they’re critical of Israeli politics. We’ve in good company: the New York Review of Books, the Nation, even Ha’aretz in Jerusalem have similar stances.
Blue Star’s reaction? A toxic e-mail blast, reprinting (without the authors’ permission or ours) the opinions we published, larded with inflammatory headlines like “Ugly Anti-Semitism in Response to BlueStarPR Coexistence Poster.†(See it at http://www.berkeleydailypl anet.com/ mcl/bluestar- pr.htm .)
Even worse, they added, under the headline “Shocking Letters to the Editor of the Berkeley Daily Planet,†another unsigned “letter†which had never appeared in the Planet and never would, because we don’t print unsigned or anti-Semitic letters. We’d never seen it, let alone published it.
Blast recipients—there were a lot of them—wrote knee-jerk outraged letters denouncing the Planet for anti-Semitism, incorporating the material which they’d gotten from Blue Star.
We called and wrote to Blue Star, threatening legal action for libel. They promptly (and prudently) issued a grudging partial retraction, presumably on advice of counsel, but the damage is done.
Blue Star’s effort to link the Berkeley Daily Planet with this spurious letter casts doubt on all the rest of their pro-Israel public relations endeavors. They couldn’t say where they’d gotten the phony letter or why they used it—I called to ask, and was told that “a student sent it.†Oh sure.
http://www.berkeley dailyplanet. com/issue/ 2008-10-09/ article/31298? headline= Free-Speech- Is-not-Hate- Journalism-
December 5, 2009
If palastine whants statehood
then they must want friendship
with isreal
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