Following up on Friday’s publish about a number of main scholar teams at Berkeley Legislation pledging to not invite “audio system which have expressed and continued to carry views … in help of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.”
(1) Ken Marcus, whose op-ed on the state of affairs spurred the controversy, responds to his critics right here.
(2) Jewish Berkeley Legislation college students speak about their response right here. Notice that College students for Justice in Palestine consulted with each affinity group on the legislation college earlier than issuing the boycott pledge *besides” the Jewish legislation college students group.
(3) One level I did not point out in my earlier publish is that SJP’s assertion appears half and parcel of a nationwide SJP marketing campaign to particularly attempt to exclude Jews from “progressive areas” except they may particularly denounce Israel’s existence. To take one in all an sadly rising variety of examples:
Two Jewish college students on the State College of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz say they had been booted from a help group for sexual assault victims and harassed by members of the group because of their Jewish identification, based on a criticism filed with the Training Division.
One of many victims, scholar Cassandra Blotner, says members of the help group threatened to spit on her in public for proudly being Jewish, whereas others known as her a “dumb bitch” who helps “mass genocide” because of her help for Israel. The criticism alleges the college was “absolutely conscious of the state of affairs,” but did nothing to guard the scholars from the anti-Semitic hate marketing campaign.
Once more, this can be a political technique, quite than merely remoted incidents. Recall that the Ladies’s March collapsed as a result of its founders determined that Jews weren’t welcome. Additionally word that Palestinian foyer mouthpiece Rep. Rashida Tlaib not too long ago said that you could’t be a progressive and help “Israel’s apartheid authorities” and Linda Sarsour equally remarked that one cannot be a feminist and a “Zionist.”
(4) However, you may object, that when Tlaib says “Israel’s apartheid authorities” she does not imply “Israel,” simply the insurance policies she objects to. That may make extra sense if Tlaib wasn’t on the file as supporting the substitute of all of Israel with “Palestine.” Equally, one commenter was fairly insistent that when SJP says “Zionism” it doesn’t imply “the existence of Israel,” “the apartheid state of Israel” means solely Israel’s dangerous insurance policies that they assume is akin to apartheid, and the “occupation of Palestine” means solely the occupation of the West Financial institution, not all of Israel. Anybody who is aware of SJP’s historical past and politics would know that they imply, precisely, that anybody who helps Israel’s existence needs to be forbidden from talking. However only for the heck of it, I perused SJP Berkeley Legislation’s Fb web page, which talks about “Israel’s apartheid” going again to the late Forties, ie, when Israel was based, and effectively earlier than the “occupation” of the West Financial institution. So if you see Tlaib, SJP, and others speak about “apartheid Israel,” there’s a quite simple query to ask: Is there a time if you assume Israel wasn’t responsible of “apartheid,” and is there something Israel might do, wanting surrendering in favor of a Palestinian Muslim-majority state, that may make Israel “not apartheid?” As soon as they evade that query, or possibly even reply actually, you might be satisfied, for those who aren’t already, that in observe the apartheid libel has nothing to do with Israel’s insurance policies, and every thing to do with opposition to Israel’s existence and the need to exchange it with a Palestinian Muslim majority state.
(5) Relatedly, one commenter acknowledges that SJP desires Israel to stop to exist, however provides that I neglect “as a Jewish state that privileges the Jewish majority.” Let’s assume for the sake of argument that there’s something inherently flawed with having one tiny nation dedicated to preserving and defending a people who’s been topic to genocide and each type of oppression wanting it in simply the previous century or so (mass pogroms throughout the Russian Revolution, expulsion from Arab international locations, Soviet state antisemitism, and so forth., along with the Nazis.). Each the Palestinian Authority and Hamas promise a “Palestine” based mostly on sharia, thus inherently privileging Muslims way over Israel “privileges” its Jewish residents. If this bothers any of the activists who declare to oppose Israel as a result of it is “chauvinist,” I’ve but to come across it. And as detailed in Benny Morris’ One State, Two States, any Palestinians keen to countenance a binational state or comparable preparations had been murdered or intimidated into silence by the dominant faction, leaving Jewish advocates of such an answer with nothing to go on.
Lastly, the dominant Palestinian nationalist factions need both 2 Palestinian Muslim states, one solely Arab-Muslim, and one majority Arab-Muslim with a maybe-tolerated Jewish minority, or one state with few if any Jews, the remaining murdered or expelled. Few if any Palestinian nationalists are keen to publicly state {that a} Palestinian state needs to be contingent on the rights if Jewish Israelis being protected. Once more, this bothers their supporters in no way. So spare me the suggestion that the underlying drawback is inequality in Israel. Arab residents in Israel have far higher equality than Jews in an Arab Palestine might hope for in the perfect of circumstances. (Which is why the trending trope is that Israeli Jews are “settler colonialists” and due to this fact haven’t any rights.)
(6) Even that apart, you’d should be totally unaware of the historical past of antisemitism to assume that it “simply so occurs” that of all of the international locations on this planet, the one folks singled out for this boycott are supporters of the existence of Israel, no matter how the person may really feel about all or any of Israel’s insurance policies, and that the one ethnic/spiritual group, ever, that may be virtually totally excluded by a Berkeley Legislation scholar boycott is Jews. It might be pointless for instance, ask the Muslim and the MENA scholar teams why they do not rule out audio system who help Assad’s Alawite Syrian dictatorship, accountable for the dying of half 1,000,000 Arabs, primarily Muslims far worse than even the craziest “antizionists” accuse Israel of doing. No Jews concerned, so no cause to care.
(7) I can not discover the hyperlink proper now, however Berkeley’s chancellor was quoted as stating that there isn’t any authorized rationale for prohibiting the coed teams in query from exercising their “freedom of speech.” I am undecided that is true. First, California’s public lodging legislation could be very, very broad, principally prohibiting excluding anybody from any public place (outlined broadly) for any cause. There was even a case by which a German restaurant was sued by the ACLU for excluding folks carrying Nazi insignia. After all, nobody would argue that SJP is obligated to herald a pro-Israel speaker; that may violate its First Modification rights. However can Berkeley Legislation Ladies decline to ask a speaker on abortion rights as a result of that speaker has endorsed the existence of Israel? I feel that is lower than clear. Second, it is true that not all Jews help the existence of Israel, and never all individuals who publicly help Israel’s proper to exist are Jews. Nevertheless, think about an anti-gay rights group on campus acquired different organizations to signal a pledge that they won’t invite any speaker on any matter who professes to help the suitable of same-sex {couples} to marry. Would the Chancellor be so assured that this might not be thought-about by civil rights companies and courts to represent discrimination based mostly on sexual orientation, as a result of same-sex marriage is so intently tied to that? I will not be belabor the analogy. I am truly not a fan of the choices universally holding that refusing to bake a cake for a identical intercourse wedding ceremony constitutes sexual-orientation discrimination even when the patrons are at all times homosexual, but when that is going to be the kind of rule we stay below, it also needs to apply to Jews. And going again to level 3, if anybody who *is not* Jewish has confronted harassment on campus for being a “Zionist,” I’ve but to come across it.
(8) Adam Pukier of the Jewish Scholar Affiliation at Berkeley Legislation, writes: “If I might do it over once more, I might have requested LSJP to incorporate the Jewish scholar group within the dialog. I might have inspired different teams to hunt out Jewish voices on campus. I might have engaged on a person degree in an open dialogue about Zionism and the BDS motion. I might have defined how it’s potential for somebody to harbor a deep sympathies for the Palestinian folks, help the existence of the State of Israel and strongly criticize a lot of Israel’s insurance policies all on the identical time — it’s potential to be a Zionist and condemn the actions of Israel.”
Mr. Pukier’s efforts to face up for Jewish college students at Berkeley Legislation, which is hardly the favored factor to do there, are commendable. However absolutely he is aware of that SJP has no real interest in having a dialog or dialogue with him or anybody who helps Israel’s existence. SJP Tufts, for instance, not solely refuses “dialogue” with even left-wing teams like J Road that assume Israel ought to exist, however urge others to boycott them totally.
They don’t seem to be thinking about compromise, listening to different views, or anything. They need Israel to get replaced by Palestine they usually haven’t any different precept. Even the opportunity of the genocide of the Jewish inhabitants of Israel just isn’t a big concern. Once more, the purpose of calling Israeli Jews “settler colonialists” is that they need to haven’t any human rights, and simply as, e.g., there are few regrets on the left for the various Frenchmen killed and finally expelled from Algeria, the identical is true of Israel. After all, most would possible choose that the Jews give up peacefully, however that is a desire, not a requirement.
As for the remainder of Mr. Pukier’s paragraph, it is lacking one thing vital. It is also potential to have a deep concern for the well-being of the Palestinian folks and help the insurance policies generally of the Israeli authorities, if one believes that it is not the Israeli authorities’s insurance policies which are the barrier to enhancing the lot of Palestinians, however the refusal, for the reason that Nineteen Thirties and persevering with in the present day, of Palestinian leaders to countenance a settlement that may enable a Jewish state of any borders in “Palestine.” By suggesting that solely harsh critics of Israel fear about Palestinian well-being, one is wrongly conceding that “Zionists” who’re usually sympathetic to Israeli insurance policies are inherently anti-Palestinian and implicitly dangerous folks.
