Recently, I was alerted by my Brandeis student newspaper, The Justice, that Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren would be our keynote commencement speaker. Needless to say, I was disappointed, and not just because there were better choices even among the other honorary degree recipients (Paul Simon and Paul Farmer come to mind). What this selection indicates is that Brandeis University, a institution which takes ‘social justice’ as one of its founding credos, is willing to send its new graduates into the world with the words of a rogue state apologist, a defender of (among other things) the war crimes and human rights abuses of the war on Gaza. Moreover, regardless of one’s political beliefs one can easily see that having such a polarizing speaker for commencement is divisive, exclusionary, and just plain stupid.
Brandeis University has a strange relationship with Israel. As a historically Jewish university with deep, abiding ties to the Jewish community, the campus is overwhelmingly of a Zionist bent. However, this tends to overshadow and exclude other positions on the issue. Problematically, it is assumed that all Jews support Israeli policy, all the time, and Brandeis’s actions over the past few years indicate that it is devoted to this idea of community homogenity:
- In 2006, a Palestinian art exhibit was initially given approval, then suddenly taken down; President Reinharz’s response to criticism of this crackdown on speech was that the university needed “to move on.”
- In 2007, former President Carter’s address to students was nearly canceled because of his calls for an end to apartheid in the occupied territories. While he was allowed to speak, President Reinharz refused to meet with him, and after the speech infamous hasbara-monger Alan Dershowitz came on stage to belittle and defame Carter.
- In fall 2009, Justice Richard Goldstone chose Brandeis as the first place to present his views on the historic Goldstone Report. The University chose to repay him for this honor by forcing him to share the stage with bullying, porn-mustachioed Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador who spent his time proclaiming his ignorance of international law and making wild, derailing claims about Palestinians in order to justify the massacre of thousands of Gazan civilians.
I was involved in organizing around the last incident, and it taught me the total intransigence of our university administration on any topic surrounding Israel. Along with several students, I presented our grievances to the event’s sponsor, the Brandeis Ethics Center, pointing out that Gold’s presence belittled the seriousness of the report, and made the issue of war crimes a matter of armchair debate. The format of the debate forced Goldstone into the role of the ‘anti-Israel’ position, when in fact he was a third party trying to determine the facts in the context of international law. We humbly requested that Gold not be invited, or that they also include a Palestinian speaker who could speak to her community’s concerns. This was summarily rejected.
At the event itself, several students (including myself) silently stood up during Gold’s speech, wearing sheets of paper with the names of Gazan and Israeli citizens killed in the conflict. The idea was to ask the forum participants to face the reality of what they were discussing, to point out that the outcome of this discussion would be measured in real lives, not political points. Gold vociferously denounced us from the stage, whining that his freedom of speech (as the representative of a nuclear state) was threatened by a dozen silent teenagers. Although none of the protestors were arrested, several were physically assaulted by members of the crowd: they were kicked, had their hair pulled, and had chairs thrust into the backs of their knees.
Michael Oren’s selection as commencement speaker is clearly designed to send a message: at a unique turning point in U.S.-Israeli relations, and when strong feelings on this issue have already been voiced on campus, our university administration wants everyone to know that is has no qualms about marginalizing dissenting opinions by bringing a partisan, divisive speaker to commencement. My good friend Mariel Gruszko (a graduating senior) expresses this aptly:
“For some Jews, Oren is a model of statesmanship. For others, he represents a paranoid style in Israeli politics. For most outside the Jewish community, Oren is a figure of little note. For Palestinians, he is the apologist and gatekeeper for a government that has denied them basic rights and humanitarian assistance and made them vulnerable to deportation. Oren is a painful reminder of the divisions we face as a community.
“We deserve better than this. Commencement should be a time to celebrate as we move onto the next phase of our lives, not a time for recriminations and ostracizations. Commencement speakers traditionally give graduating students boring but sage advice on how to conduct oneself in the world. But many of us would rather not take advice from Oren. Many more of us are confused about how Oren fits into Brandeis’ commitment to social justice.”
Despite the heat we dissenters are already getting from those who would enforce the status quo, don’t imagine that Brandeis students will take this lying down. We are organizing to protest this decision. Details on how this campaign is going and how you can help will be forthcoming.
Jonathan Sussman is a junior at Brandeis majoring in English Literature and History of Ideas. He is active in Students for a Democratic Society, Students for Justice in Palestine, Brandeis Humanists and Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance.
