Get over Apartheid Week’s name and deal with the issues
Too often, Israeli Apartheid Week degenerates into an argument over its own name.
It’s all rhetoric. If you believe that the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories today is analogous to apartheid, so be it. And if you believe that it’s a poor analogy, that’s fine too. Either way, it’s all rhetoric. And either way, choosing your place within the intense campus debate (by which we mean shouting match) about Israel-Palestine based solely upon your beliefs about the use of a single word is irresponsible, simplistic and narrow-minded. No real debate can come from wordplay.
The thick, charged atmosphere of the eighth annual Israeli Apartheid Week, which is closely linked with the BDS movement (the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel), descended on campuses across America last week, Feb. 28 to March 3. (IAW also takes place all over the world, but the exact dates vary.) We find it hard to believe that any hearts were swayed, that any minds were changed. There were positive signs this year, but the persistence of IAW events that are nothing more than debates over — or attempted explanations of — the use of the term “apartheid” is not encouraging. Talk about missing the point.
The David Project’s new “white paper” advocating a less antagonistic approach to pro-Israel advocacy on campus has gained traction. It’s good, but it could be better. In an interview with New Voices, David Project leader David Bernstein was asked about how they deal with students who support BDS, some of whom are Jewish. “We ignore them,” Bernstein said. Refusing to engage with pro-Palestinian voices is innocuous at best, counterproductive at worst. In either case, it’s an improvement over the David Project’s old, more bombastic style.
But there’s plenty of blame to go around. A pro-IAW op-ed in the Columbia Spectator (Columbia is an epicenter of IAW) said that IAW supporters couldn’t possibly have a civil dialogue with pro-Israel students until they admit that Israel is an apartheid regime.
So while IAW was calmer and provoked fewer nasty or violent reactions than in past years, it’s not as if the two sides are talking to each other. Maybe they’re talking at each other, but it looks more like they’re both just preaching to the choir. In any case, it’s clear that preconditions — the subject of so much attention when it comes to the seemingly far-off prospect of peace talks in Israel-Palestine — have arrived on campus. The first side won’t talk to the second side until they admit that Israel is apartheid, and the second side won’t talk to the first side until they admit that apartheid is an offensively inaccurate term. That’s what we call preconditions.
The angry antagonism of the pro-Israel groups on campus has subsided. This year, the right-wing and center-right groups that make up the bulk of that camp opted to spend the week in la-la land, holding Tel Aviv club nights and eating Israeli food. Students trained by the right-wing Hasbara Fellowships organized Israel Peace Week once again.
Lest you mistake Israel Peace Week for a reaction to IAW, think again. As Hasbara organizers repeatedly said, the two weeks are unrelated — never mind the fact that the two weeks were the same week. They used to engage with reality in a state of wanton anger, but now they’ve departed from it altogether.
But in all fairness, the far left hasn’t been honest either. Invoking the apartheid analogy and calling for BDS are an expression of a desire for a one-state solution; they are one and the same. Some students in the IAW camps need to recognize that their simplified rhetoric is a call for the end of the Jewish state. Those that already know that, but deny it, as some IAW supporters do, is disingenuous.
But the moderate pro-Israel left is another matter. This week J Street U organized events that engaged with some of the same issues that IAW deals with, such as human rights abuses in the West Bank. They approached the issue with nuance, focusing on students and Israeli NGOs who work or have worked to improve the situation in Israel-Palestine.
The situation in Israel seems more intractable than ever, each faction immovably entrenched, all heels firmly dug into the muck. Part of the success of BDS, limited though it may be, is that it’s a strategy that purports to affect change in a part of the world where things seem irreversibly bad. What fails to excite many about the efforts of pro-Israel groups on campus is that their efforts frequently boil down to one of two things: an endless repetition of the same irrelevant facts about Israel’s contributions to cell phone technology while the other side bemoans poverty in Gaza, or a tone-deaf celebration of Israeli night-life.
This is where a group like J Street U gets right: They acknowledge what depresses this generation about Israel, while highlighting ways to change it. And here’s a newsflash: What depresses most of us isn’t the fear of terrorist attacks, but the unconscionable civil and human rights problems that Israel has introduced in response to that perfectly reasonable fear.
New Voices editorials reflect the opinion of the New Voices Editorial Board.
