[sc:graybox ]The following guest post is written by Elijah Granet, HonestReporting’s Blankfeld Award winner for 2014-15. Elijah is currently majoring in Political Science and Talmud at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.
Across America this week, many students will be returning to school, myself included. Inevitably, as the 2015-2016 school year proceeds, academic attempts, both from students, and professors, to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel, will command attention.
Having attended two schools which tend to feature prominently on annual rankings of anti-Israel activity (UC Berkeley and Columbia), my elders in the Jewish and pro-Israel communities often have difficulty distinguishing my school life from a stint in the IDF. From the frightened looks on the faces of those inquiring after what life is like as a Jewish and Zionist student on a modern American university campus, one might assume that I live under siege, dodging constant attacks and disdain from professors and students alike.
[sc:graybox ]Join the Fighting BDS Facebook page and stand up against the delegitimization of Israel.
The increased efforts to combat anti-Israel activity on campus, and BDS more generally, from Jewish organizations, is an excellent development in halting the demonization of the Jewish state. No one involved in pro-Israel activism, least of all me, would deny the critical importance of stopping the creeping BDS activity which is insidiously infecting nearly every arena of public life.
To combat BDS, however, requires refuting the lies on which the movement is predicated (and the movement is predicated on nothing but an enormous pile of lies).
Some of the more egregious lies (and with BDS, egregiousness is a matter of degree) are easily spotted (though, unfortunately, their effects cannot so easily be undone); see for example, the common manipulation of photos and images (“Pallywood”, if you will).
Along the same lines, most educated observers of Israel can quite easily point out BDS’s blatant twisting, omission, and false claims regarding everything from geography and the historical record, to Israeli politics and demographics. Many organizations have done an excellent job in promoting education and training to allow activists and ordinary people alike to identify and spot these clear attempts to twist the truth.
That these same organizations have taken an interest in the various campus imbroglios over Israel is a good thing, as I said earlier. The increased media attention given to instances of blatant anti-Semitism on campus (e.g. events last term at UCLA) is, similarly, a much needed development.
This, however, creates an unintended consequence: the popular notion that the university campus is witness to a constant and never-ending battle on the front lines for the existence of Israel, in which Jewish students are constantly and unceasingly attacked.
First, I will graciously cede the “front lines,” “battleground,” and other military metaphors to the IDF, which is fighting on the actual front lines for the existence of Israel. Figures of speech aside, this popular conception is dangerous because it unwittingly embraces of one of the most pernicious and pervasive lies of the BDS movement.
The BDS movement would like you to believe that American university students are up in arms over the alleged evils Israel perpetrates. The movement wants you to believe that every student, with the exception of a small minority of Jewish ones, wakes up furious over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, puts on his or her keffiyeh, and builds an “apartheid wall” in his or her dorm. They want you to think that the Palestinian flag has been foisted from the top of nearly every Ivory Tower of nearly every university, not just in America, but around the world.
Accepting this blatantly false premise is a capitulation to BDS, because it works on the assumption that BDS has already won over most of the hearts and minds of students. Too much of the world already hates Israel and relates to the term “Zionist” in the pejorative as a result of effective anti-Israel propaganda against the Jewish state.
University campuses have not yet reached that point. When advocates for Israel confuse a few loud student council members, a few loud protesters (often the same student council members) along with some vocal professors, for a majority of academics and students, they are neglecting the real battle which still must be fought.
Most students, and indeed, I would wager, most professors, don’t actually care that much (nor know that much) about Israel, or the Middle East in general. Even students who are activists for Israel (and, I would imagine, for the BDS movement) spend most of their time entirely unconcerned with the Middle East, myself included.
Campus anti-Semitism, and Israel’s perception among students are incredibly important areas for activism, precisely because of the general apathy and ignorance that are present on campuses. There is no better or potentially receptive audience for activists for Israel to educate on the history and facts of the current conflict than students.
When we allow ourselves to imagine that the masses of undecided and unsure students have already taken up pitchforks against every Israel-supporting student on campus, we concede this massive opportunity to influence future policy on Israel to the BDS movement.
Instead of kvetching about how BDS has already taken over campuses, activists and concerned parents alike must instead work to prevent such a thing happening. The time has never been better.
[sc:graybox ]Are you a budding writer currently in full-time education? Think you can contribute articles to HonestReporting such as the one above? Then apply for this year’s Blankfeld Award for Media Critique.
