"I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Standing in opposition to moral giants like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Ronnie Kasrils — seasoned anti-apartheid activists who resisted injustice and suffered for it — a group called the Vanguard Leadership Group (VLG) has run advertisements in campus papers at Brown University, UCLA, the University of Maryland, and Columbia University, in which 16 of its members criticize Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for calling Israel an “apartheid” state.
The VLG is an organization whose cryptic website reveals little about who is involved, who it represents, what it does, and what it believes in, though the website is peppered with references to the VLG’s participation in AIPAC conferences and tours to the Israeli Knesset.
Nevertheless, under the headline “Words Matter,” this advertisement (offering little in the form of substance, but standing on a slew of bold claims about the intentions and personal qualities of students in SJPs around the country, with whom they have never spoken) boasted the signature of 16 members of the highly opaque AIPAC-affiliated organization.
Apparently that was significant enough to merit international noteworthiness. Before some campus papers like the Columbia Spectator had even had a chance to print the advertisements, the Jerusalem Post triumphantly reported on the VLG’s advertisement, trumpeting what it saw as the very important fact that these 16 signatories are so-called “black student leaders.”
It may be impossible to tell what the VLG members were thinking when they opted to sign this advertisement, since it offers little insight into the reasoning that supports their conclusions about Israel or about SJP — strange qualities for aspiring “leaders.”
What is certain, though, is that moral perspective, sound reason, and the facts of Israeli oppression were not involved in the VLG’s deliberative process. It is unlikely that each of these VLG members made an attempt to reach out to SJP students, and it doubtful that any of them ever took detours from their Israeli Knesset appearances to visit Palestinian refugee camps or witness the Israeli occupation.
The product of such leadership, then, could not be anything more than the VLG’s incredible claim that: “the Arab minority in Israel enjoys full citizenship with voting rights and representation in the government.”
One might point the VLG student leaders to The Inequality Report, a freshly-minted report by Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which found that “Inequalities between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel span all fields of public life and have persisted over time. Direct and indirect discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel is ingrained in the legal system and in governmental practice,” and that “More than 30 main laws discriminate, directly or indirectly, against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the current government coalition has proposed a flood of new racist and discriminatory bills which are at various stages in the legislative process.” (p. 7).
One might also point the 16 VLG members to the State Department’s Country Report on Human Rigths Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, which in 2004, in a rare instance of candor, reported that Israel had done “little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country’s Arab citizens. The State Department’s most recent report, published April 8, 2011, confirmed that 7-year-old finding, that “Principal human rights problems [in Israel] were institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against Arab citizens.” (It should go without saying that racism in Israel is not limited to the anti-Arab variety.)
Setting aside how sincerely the 16 signatories of this op-ed might have felt about their views, there is no question that the excitement of outlets like the Jerusalem Post, the Forward, etcetera, and their rush to cover the breaking story about a paid-advertisement in 4 campus papers signed by a mere 16 students, is supposed to convey an image of entrenched support by Black Americans for Israel, as if (a) such support exists at the grassroots level (an empirical question; given the VLG’s secretive and apparently exclusive nature, it is unlikely to be so representative of Black Americans) and (b) such support, if it even existed, would justify the reality of Israeli apartheid (an easily dismissed logical matter, a simple non sequitur).
The real question is not where the VLG stands on Israel, but rather where people who fight against racial injustice stand. In the experience of groups like SJP at UC Berkeley, solidarity between people who care about racism and social justice has formed a strong rebuttal to Israeli propaganda, which is directly at odds with such struggles. If the VLG believes that it participates in a struggle against racism, then it cannot remain true to its ideals while also standing on the side of racism in Israel.
In that light, it is baffling that, at a time when support for Palestinian freedom and opposition to Israeli oppression growscontinuously amidst veterans of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and while racism in Israel reaches unprecedented heights, that the 16 members of VLG who issued the statement would make such an uninformed proclamation about Israeli racism and SJP.
Such striking inaccuracy is either the work of a group that is out of touch, or deliberately disingenuous. One hopes that the VLG aspires to be neither.
Perhaps the most important success of the divestment movement at Berkeley has been overlooked. Yes, it is true that a super majority of the student senate supported divestment from Israeli war crimes and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. It is true that the vote was reversed only after pro-Israel mobilization kicked in to remind people where the interests of power reside. It is true that it was thus clear to all, including the flip-flopping senators, what the “right” thing to do was. It was also clear that the right thing to do, would not be the easy thing to do.
Yet the greater success lies elsewhere. While many have hailed the diversity of the bill’s proponents, few have pointed out that these coalitions were built in spite of extensive and expensive campaigns by pro-Israel propagandists to conjure an image of Israel as the natural cause for people of color, queer communities, and other progressive-minded activists working on environmental issues. In and of itself this is a huge victory for Palestinians and their supporters, and a huge defeat for the Israeli propaganda machine.
Following the occupation of Wheeler Hall on Friday November 20, former Student Action Senator Tara Raffi penned a regrettable op-ed decrying the protest and its participants. I know Raffi, who has always been kind and respectful towards me, but her demeanor cannot save her claims from criticism or scrutiny.
Unfortunately Raffi’s column appears to misapprehend crucial facts both about the strikes and the situation facing the university. For one, Raffi draws an offensive and elitist image of the protesters. Second, she imputes onto the strikers a simplicity and ignorance that is simply dishonest given all that has been discussed at campus teach-in’s and in various fora that allow for more elaboration than a protest placard or chant. Third, she takes for granted that University administrators are acting in students’ interests (as if students cannot decide for themselves their own interests) and lets them off the hook when they should actually be spending every conscious moment lobbying on behalf of students. Continue reading “Only Students Will Save Our University: Response to Raffi” »
As the House of Representatives passed its delusional resolution condemning the Goldstone Report last week, Congressman Kucinich forcefully objected: “Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist. Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking….”
Today marks the one year anniversary of November 13 2008. On this evening one year ago, a group of three Palestinian students holding flags in silent protest were violently confronted by a group of three concert organizers for the right-wing anti-Arab organization, Tikvah Students for Israel. Unsurprisingly, the assailants quickly tried to discredit their victims by reporting the story backwards, claiming they were the victims. Conflicting narratives do not a dispute of fact make, however, and while many were inclined to put faith in one group or another, it takes nothing less than a deliberate suspension of reason to refuse to acknowledge the bruises that appeared the next morning. Continue reading “November 13th and the Whitewashing of a Berkeley Hate Crime” »
For the most part, public and explicit expressions of extreme hate or animosity towards racialized groups of people are pretty easy to identify as wrong. Despite this, in certain spaces, the infamous ‘harmless racist joke’ persists because, as the defender says, it is not to be taken as a serious communication of ill-will.
Examples of these jokes can sound something like this (and I apologize for repeating them):
“How was the Grand Canyon formed? A Jew dropped a penny down a manhole!”
“How do you blind an Asian woman? Put a windshield in front of her!”
“What’s the difference between a pizza and a Mexican? A pizza can feed four!”
Of course, the person delivering this joke loves to glamorize him/herself as a bold hero who is not afraid of “being offensive” and won’t let something silly like “political correctness” get in the way of his/her free speech. In this First Amendment martyr’s world, not only should it simply be legal to tell the racist joke, but it’s also a moral duty to do so. It’s only humor, after all. Continue reading “Racist jokes draw the color line” »
Perhaps the most important success of the divestment movement at Berkeley has been overlooked. Yes, it is true that a super majority of the student senate supported divestment from Israeli war crimes and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. It is true that the vote was reversed only after pro-Israel mobilization kicked in to remind people where the interests of power reside. It is true that it was thus clear to all, including the flip-flopping senators, what the “right” thing to do was. It was also clear that the right thing to do, would not be the easy thing to do.
Truth Matters: A response to the Vanguard Leadership Group
"I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Standing in opposition to moral giants like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Ronnie Kasrils — seasoned anti-apartheid activists who resisted injustice and suffered for it — a group called the Vanguard Leadership Group (VLG) has run advertisements in campus papers at Brown University, UCLA, the University of Maryland, and Columbia University, in which 16 of its members criticize Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for calling Israel an “apartheid” state.
The VLG is an organization whose cryptic website reveals little about who is involved, who it represents, what it does, and what it believes in, though the website is peppered with references to the VLG’s participation in AIPAC conferences and tours to the Israeli Knesset.
Nevertheless, under the headline “Words Matter,” this advertisement (offering little in the form of substance, but standing on a slew of bold claims about the intentions and personal qualities of students in SJPs around the country, with whom they have never spoken) boasted the signature of 16 members of the highly opaque AIPAC-affiliated organization.
Apparently that was significant enough to merit international noteworthiness. Before some campus papers like the Columbia Spectator had even had a chance to print the advertisements, the Jerusalem Post triumphantly reported on the VLG’s advertisement, trumpeting what it saw as the very important fact that these 16 signatories are so-called “black student leaders.”
It may be impossible to tell what the VLG members were thinking when they opted to sign this advertisement, since it offers little insight into the reasoning that supports their conclusions about Israel or about SJP — strange qualities for aspiring “leaders.”
What is certain, though, is that moral perspective, sound reason, and the facts of Israeli oppression were not involved in the VLG’s deliberative process. It is unlikely that each of these VLG members made an attempt to reach out to SJP students, and it doubtful that any of them ever took detours from their Israeli Knesset appearances to visit Palestinian refugee camps or witness the Israeli occupation.
Giving the VLG members the benefit of the doubt, maybe they had not bothered to try visiting Gaza for themselves because they were already aware of the fact that the people of Gaza have been under a merciless Israeli military siege since 2006, one that has given dietitians unprecedented influence and prestige in the Israeli military apparatus.
The product of such leadership, then, could not be anything more than the VLG’s incredible claim that: “the Arab minority in Israel enjoys full citizenship with voting rights and representation in the government.”
One might point the VLG student leaders to The Inequality Report, a freshly-minted report by Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which found that “Inequalities between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel span all fields of public life and have persisted over time. Direct and indirect discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel is ingrained in the legal system and in governmental practice,” and that “More than 30 main laws discriminate, directly or indirectly, against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the current government coalition has proposed a flood of new racist and discriminatory bills which are at various stages in the legislative process.” (p. 7).
One might also point the 16 VLG members to the State Department’s Country Report on Human Rigths Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories, which in 2004, in a rare instance of candor, reported that Israel had done “little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country’s Arab citizens. The State Department’s most recent report, published April 8, 2011, confirmed that 7-year-old finding, that “Principal human rights problems [in Israel] were institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against Arab citizens.” (It should go without saying that racism in Israel is not limited to the anti-Arab variety.)
Setting aside how sincerely the 16 signatories of this op-ed might have felt about their views, there is no question that the excitement of outlets like the Jerusalem Post, the Forward, etcetera, and their rush to cover the breaking story about a paid-advertisement in 4 campus papers signed by a mere 16 students, is supposed to convey an image of entrenched support by Black Americans for Israel, as if (a) such support exists at the grassroots level (an empirical question; given the VLG’s secretive and apparently exclusive nature, it is unlikely to be so representative of Black Americans) and (b) such support, if it even existed, would justify the reality of Israeli apartheid (an easily dismissed logical matter, a simple non sequitur).
The real question is not where the VLG stands on Israel, but rather where people who fight against racial injustice stand. In the experience of groups like SJP at UC Berkeley, solidarity between people who care about racism and social justice has formed a strong rebuttal to Israeli propaganda, which is directly at odds with such struggles. If the VLG believes that it participates in a struggle against racism, then it cannot remain true to its ideals while also standing on the side of racism in Israel.
In that light, it is baffling that, at a time when support for Palestinian freedom and opposition to Israeli oppression grows continuously amidst veterans of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and while racism in Israel reaches unprecedented heights, that the 16 members of VLG who issued the statement would make such an uninformed proclamation about Israeli racism and SJP.
Such striking inaccuracy is either the work of a group that is out of touch, or deliberately disingenuous. One hopes that the VLG aspires to be neither.
Cross posted at KABOBfest