To the editor:
In an op-ed published last week, “Uncomfortable on my own campus,” Nov. 18, Carly Korman wrote of her dismay that Students for Justice in Palestine was included in last week’s powerful Million Student March. We feel the need to correct some glaring inaccuracies in her piece that misrepresent and slander our group.
She stated that, “the overall goal of (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is to eliminate Israel as the state of the Jewish people.” This is incorrect. In 2005, Palestinian civil society – including over 170 Palestinian organizations – issued a global call to people of conscience to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel for its myriad human rights abuses. The call for BDS outlines three specific demands of Israel:
- End its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantle the Apartheid Wall.
- Recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.
- Respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
As can be seen, neither BDS nor SJP call for the destruction of Israel.
She also claimed that BDS targets her as a pro-Israel individual. Again, this is not the case. BDS targets institutions that perpetuate the occupation and oppression of Palestinians, not individuals. For example, we are currently campaigning for the removal of Sabra products from campus retail stores. Sabra is a company that invests in and supports the Golani Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, whose human rights abuses have been extensively documented and include arbitrary murders, evictions and arrests of children.
Our enthusiastic participation in the Million Student March is a result of our long-standing solidarity with all struggles for justice. We look forward to continuing our work for human rights and equality for all.
Signed,
UMass Amherst Students for Justice in Palestine
ML/NJ • Apr 23, 2016 at 11:46 am
“Justice in ‘Palestine'” apparently includes making Judea and Sumeria Judenrein !
Zuffy • Dec 4, 2015 at 11:51 pm
David, no ‘offer’ has ever actually included the entirety of West Bank land, no ‘90% figure’ has ever included lands Israel has already annexed. You THINK its the majority of the land but its just something you and other Israel supporters devise in your minds to make yourselves feel better think that the state is doing all it can to achieve peace. Let me tell you, it hasn’t been.
Further, you constantly comment on Collegian articles and whine that Israel is being singled out and then mention similar atrocities happening in the world. A) is that really the standard you want Israel to be held to? B) you can mention the other atrocities all you want, Israel is still committing these crimes. You seem unable to confront that.
Alumni Achieved • Dec 2, 2015 at 9:44 pm
As a public university it is illegal to take any financial action in a contentious, publicly debated situation through funding or lack of funding. BDS opens the university to a very possible, very real lawsuit, and opens the state to liability if the pension funds fall short due to divestment from blue chip stocks like Catepillar.
Either both sides get support, or BDS needs to call for divestment from any company that supports Palestine as well in interest of fairness and equality.
David Hunt 1990 • Dec 2, 2015 at 11:10 am
Er, correction… those darned Jews just refused to get with the “war of extermination” proclaimed by the Arab League in 1948. But then, Egypt’s Nasser said the same in 1967.
David Hunt 1990 • Dec 2, 2015 at 9:33 am
Zuffy:
History shows otherwise. There were attacks on Jews prior to Israel existing; thus your argument is invalid. Your argument is doubly-invalid when you look at 1948-1967 when there were attacks even when ARABS ran Gaza and the West Bank. And when Israel withdrew from Gaza, the rockets and mortars started.
Now it’s been confirmed that Abbas rejected an offer of all of Gaza and over 90% of the West Bank, plus a corridor between the two.
If you’re so concerned with occupations, where is your concern for China’s occupation of Tibet, or Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus, or, or, or. Where are your concerns for all the Hindus displaced when Pakistan – a country that never existed before – was formed? Where are your concerns for the 600K+ Jews driven from Arab countries after Israel had the temerity to not lie down and die in 1968?
No, once again, Jews are marked for “Special Handling”.
Zuffy • Nov 24, 2015 at 6:28 pm
David,
Each of your points have been exhausted and overused ad nauseam. They are tired old talking points. Each and every one can be easily overturned, as they have been countless times. The problem is, and always has been, Israel. Get over it.
🙂
Harrison Shecter • Nov 24, 2015 at 1:55 pm
I’m glad the collegian has accepted a precedent that when they publish Israeli/Palestinian op eds they will open up and allow the other side to respond. This will surely be enforced should they publish any anti Israel material in the future lest this occurrence look fairly skewed in one direction.
Mohamad Barham • Nov 24, 2015 at 12:10 pm
@David you seem to to ignore the fact Isreal has more than 50 written laws that establish an Apartheid like South Africa, including segregated roads. Also Israel has established concentration camps to place its migrant population.
http://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10743910/We-are-prisoners-here-say-migrants-at-Israels-desert-detention-camp.html
Zac Bears • Nov 24, 2015 at 11:29 am
Here, here.
David Hunt 1990 • Nov 24, 2015 at 11:11 am
Three times, just recently, Israel put forth proposals for Gaza and the West Bank to be returned to the Fakestinians. One even proposed a tunnel connecting the two for easier exchanges between the two.
Rejected. Each time.
Let me repeat that. THREE TIMES, recently, Israel offered the Fakestinians EXACTLY what BDS is waging war on Israel to attempt to achieve. This is not unknown to SJP and BDS members. Thus, having witnessed a rejection of what BDS claims to want, one can logically conclude BDS’s goals are MORE than the “1967 borders”. Like the Fakestinians, they want the whole enchilada. And are the political and economic arm of the war waged on Israel, to return the land to Dar al Islam (the House of Islam). BY ISLAMIC DOCTRINE, after all, any land that was EVER controlled by Muslims is to be held by Muslims, or recaptured.
Hamas, in charge of Gaza, has in its written charter the destruction of Israel. The “moderate” PA has its maps showing NO ISRAEL. The PA has TV programs FOR CHILDREN discussing how glorious it is to kill Jews. Official pronouncements by the PA discuss cities that would still be in Israel were Israel to return to the 1948 armistice boarders are referred to as belonging to the Fakestinians.
Peace? When a mother, whose son is in an ISRAELI hospital, IN THE PROCESSES of being operated on BY JEWS to save his life… hopes that he grows up to kill Jews – the problem isn’t Israel.
When 73% of Fakestinians agree with the Koranic hadith “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him…” – the problem isn’t Israel.
When only 1 in 3 Fakestinains accept two states for two people, per a Jerusalem Post report:
http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=229493
The problem… is NOT Israel.
When over half support teaching children to hate Jews… the problem is not Israel.
When a three-year-old girl holds up a knife and says, to wild social media approval, that she wants to stab Jews… when a student is asked why he is studying engineering and answers that he wants to learn how best to kill Jews… when one of the most shared videos among the Fakestinians are videos on how to stab Jews… when a shop in Gaza named “Hitler” is a popular place because its mannequins hold knifes….
The problem is NOT Israel.
Israel captured the Sinai after Egypt committed causus belli… and then Israel returned it in exchange for a peace treaty. For those not blinded by their hatred for “descendants of pigs and apes”, try these videos.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngFYOLOkmaI
The History of the Middle East Conflict in 11 Minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZY8m0cm1oY
David Hunt 1990 • Nov 24, 2015 at 9:36 am
Taquiyya. Pure taquiyya.
The Palestinians cheered when a three-month old girl was stabbed to death in her crib. Such is the nature of the “peace loving” people, the Fakestinians.
A peace-desiring people, were the Fakestinians such, would not launch an average of three missiles / mortars A DAY FOR TEN YEARS from Gaza into Israel… AFTER having Israel COMPLETELY WITHDRAW from the land. They would not invest millions of pounds of concrete that could have been used to build schools, or hospitals, or libraries… into tunnels that were to be used to kill Jews, and capture as many as possible to be scattered through Gaza as a deterrent to the IDF’s retaliation.
A peace-desiring people would not name their children “Knife of Jerusalem”. They would not stand by, let alone spit on, a woman with a knife embedded in her back. They would not celebrate parents gunned down in a car in front of their children. They wouldn’t throw cinder blocks and molotov cocktails from overpasses onto cars.
A peace-desiring people would not dance in the streets upon hearing that a three-month-old girl was stabbed in her crib. A peace-desiring people would not celebrate and hand out candy while cheering when civilians praying were knifed down. A peace-loving people would not name streets and squares after those who kill those with whom they claim they want to live side-by-side in separate states.
Never mind the furor over the Confederate Battle Flag; imagine if South Carolina started naming squares like James Earl Ray Square. Or a street after Byron De La Beckwith. There would – and RIGHTLY – be a hue and cry. More broadly, there would be a legitimate and well-founded argument that SC was run by unrepentant KKK members (FYI, the KKK was founded by Democrats).
Here, though… the Fakestinians do the same. And nobody bats an eyelash.
Nobody bats an eyelash over China; where are the calls to boycott them? Nobody bats an eyelash over Turkey. Or, or, or. No. Once again, echoing history, we Jews are marked for “special handling”.
What would happen if Israel returned to the 1948 armistice lines, formed when Israel had the bad grace to win against what the President of the Arab League announced would be a “glorious war of extermination”? All of Israel would be in missile range. As evidenced by CURRENT BEHAVIOR by the Fakestinians in Gaza.
I asked repeatedly in the comments, and will ask again: Against an opponent whose every spoken word, written word, and deed says “We want you dead!” what is there to negotiate?
To honestly consider the question is to answer it. BDS seeks to weaken Israel so it can be more easily overrun. BDS seeks dead Jews, and a judenrein Israel. And to all the Jews who support BDS, your erstwhile Fakestinian partners in this endeavor will cheerfully thank you for your help… by slitting your throats as well.