Tikvah: Students for Israel’s false hope
Yesterday, members of Students for Justice in Palestine held a die-in on campus in solidarity with the people of Gaza, 116 of whom were killed by Israeli attacks over the past few days.
In typical fashion, a small number of people from the new organization Tikvah: Students for Israel appeared to counter-protest. Their counter-protest consisted of a sign displayed ahead of our protest that read, “Victims of Palestinian Terror,” meant to confuse passers-by as to the purpose of our action.
Tikvah’s actions are consistent with Israel advocacy campaigns in this country. They rely upon introducing a false binary. If Palestinian deaths at the hands of a state army are mentioned or acted upon, members of Tikvah and other such groups will instead attempt to draw attention to Israeli civilian deaths–as if it were impossible for both to be repugnant, and as if it weren’t the case that all of SJP’s events over the past 3 years that did not revolve around a specific incident mentioned both Israeli and Palestinian civilian deaths. Rather than recognize the deaths of all people, Tikvah instead engages in a competition to prove that the Palestinians are in fact “more evil” and thus that their deaths should be overlooked or ignored in favor of Israeli deaths. [Read more →]
