Enough. It's time to say something.
That is what I said to myself several months ago, when a group of pro-Israeli students here at the University tabled on the Lawn, passing out political propaganda under the banner "Either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists!" This group of students, known this semester as "Hoos for Israel," has been quite vocal in supporting their cause -- sadly, without serious opposition. It's about time we had some.
Most of what we see on television and read in newspapers concerning the Middle East is decidedly one-sided. We read about Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli forces destroying (strategically named) "terrorist infrastructure." We hear frothing zealots like Alan Dershowitz loudly decrying, in characteristic self-righteously indignant fashion, some gargantuan cosmic injustice done to the nation of Israel when people make reasoned and fact-based objections to the way that supposedly free and Western country treats the Palestinian people. We have seen a well-coordinated effort by those in the pro-Israeli lobby to delegitimize candid debate on the subject. Voices of criticism -- including movements encouraging divestment of financial holdings in Israel, opinion columns that deal factually with the conduct of the nation of Israel, academics and pundits critical of the unwavering military, economic and political support of the United States toward Israel -- are all automatically and emotionally attacked by the powerful and well-financed Israeli lobby. These movements tacitly, though usually overtly, are accused of being anti-Semitic. This charge is as preposterous as it is offensive.
That the Palestinian people deserve statehood is clear, and that statehood is a prerequisite to any lasting peace is a matter of course. But the Israeli government has consistently refused to grant the possibility of real statehood to the Palestinian people, and this is unacceptable. One of the largest obstacles to peace and objectionable practices of the state of Israel is the issue of settlements. Ever since 1967, the Israeli government has sponsored and funded the building of settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel conquered during wartime and now occupies militarily. Despite admonishments by the United States, Europe and the United Nations that such settlements are illegal, Israel continues to this day to build and support them. The Israeli government realizes that placing Jewish Israeli settlers (many of whom just happen to be militantly nationalistic) in these areas accomplishes several tasks.
First, they provide a first line of (mostly civilian) defense against potential foes. Second, they create infrastructure for greater military infiltration of these areas -- the settlements are connected by secure roads, security checkpoints, weapons stockpiles and fortified fences to facilitate easy military movement between settlements while disrupting Palestinian free movement. Third, and perhaps most important, the Israeli settlements provide a major obstacle to the possibility of a Palestinian state. Israel has never offered -- in fact, refuses -- to surrender, withdraw from, demolish or let alone disarm them. This fact puts a pall on the common pro-Israeli claim (included in the "fact sheet" that Hoos for Israel distributed to all University CIOs) that Israel offered "95 percent of the West Bank" to the Palestinians in the Oslo Accords, but that the PLO refused it.
That's incredibly misleading -- the Palestinian leadership understood, as I hope more University students do now, that having a state dotted with sovereign, foreign civilian populations (numbering 350,000 people), military installations and the infrastructure of a foreign power that has shown itself hostile to your people is simply unacceptable, much less an offer of real statehood. In short, we're still waiting.
What the pro-Israeli lobby must come to terms with is that there are very good reasons for opposing Israeli public policy. Israel has ignored a full 14 U.N. resolutions since 1967 -- in contrast, Iraq has violated just six since 1990. Yet the United States persists in its obstinate support of Israel as an ally, while lambasting Iraq for its gall to defy international consensus. Israel also refuses to grant the right of return for civilian Palestinian refugees forced out of their homes in the wars of 1948 and 1967. The Shin Beth, the Israeli intelligence agency, makes frequent and ruthless use of abduction, interrogation, imprisonment without trial and often torture to keep tabs on Arab Israeli citizens and Palestinians. In the face of these facts, the particular vehemence with which the pro-Israeli lobby has attacked those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause suggests some other unspoken motivation.
It is not only many liberal college students criticizing the pro-Israeli lobby. It is also tenured and respected professors, major political figures, the majority of the international community, and serious and conscientious intellectual types in the world who have roundly criticized Israel for its apartheid regime against the Palestinian people. This is not some fringe movement, and those who support it are not just hothead radicals. Framing this debate in terms of a phantom of anti-Semitism isn't just missing the point, it's also myopic and insulting.
My views on this matter are clear -- but the point is to get people talking candidly about this issue with facts, not with media propaganda. It's time we said something.
(Blair Reeves is a third-year College student.)
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