Not Just Another Jewish Group Print E-mail
Written by Pesha Black   

UPZ Brings New Possibilites for Progressive Zionists on Campus
It’s safe to say that the American Jewish community has an overabundance of organizations working on Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian issues. On campus, this crowding is felt even more acutely: a quick visit to the Israel on Campus Coalition’s webpage turns up a full 25 organizations involved in the Israel-Palestine debate on campus. How much good, then, can one more organization do?

According to the members of the recently-founded Union of Progressive Zionists, quite a lot. The UPZ, an umbrella organization whose members include Habonim Dror, Hashomer Hatzair, Meretz USA, and the Labor Zionist Alliance, drew 85 students from across North America to its founding conference in Newark, New Jersey on the weekend of October 15-17.

Founded in order “to fill the void that exists...on campuses [between] staunch unwavering support of Israel [and] those who challenge Israel's right to exist,” the organization is a coalition of Progressive Zionist organizations. According to the UPZ’s web site, www.peacepossible.org, its members “support Israel as well as a two-state solution and an end to the occupation.”

At the three-day conference, participants attended speeches by high-profile Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans concerning a two-state solution. Naomi Chazan and Yasir Abed Rabbo delivered a keynote address promoting the Geneva Initiative as a model for a negotiated peace, while Amjad Atallah, an advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team, gave a more personal view of the Geneva process. Sandwiched between the panels were presentations by speakers such as Robi Damelin and Nadwa Sarandah, two members of the Parents Circle-Family Forum for families that have lost relatives to Middle Eastern violence, and small group discussions about the direction of the UPZ.

Rather than establishing its own separate agenda, the UPZ will set itself apart from other campus organizations by working to better facilitate cooperation between its member groups. Josh Cohen, former director of Habonim Dror and one of the UPZ’s original organizers, says the organization’s status as a coalition is “what is new and different about it.” Cohen says that each member organization brings a different strength. The youth movements, Habonim Dror and Hashomer Hatzair, have large memberships, but lack the kind of access to speakers, funding, and political connections that Meretz USA and other organizations such as Brit Tzedek v’Shalom and Americans for Peace Now can provide.

The UPZ is working to create a cohesive coalition between organizations that may disagree on minor issues, but all unite behind support for the existence of the state of Israel and an end to the occupation. And for the students at the conference, the opportunity to meet like-minded activists from other campuses was a significant first step. If the UPZ can manage to steer clear of internal divisiveness, its members believe that it has the potential grow into a powerful voice, filling in the nuanced grays that are often absent from the black-and-white campus debate – and not just another Israel advocacy organization.

The organizers are hopeful that this can be accomplished. Says Cohen, “The point of the UPZ…is to get everybody together contributing what they can in order to actually do something in the field, which frankly we haven't been doing for some years.”
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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.
 
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