One of the strongest responses I had to my recent trip to Israel and Palestine is the necessity of converting American Jews to Palestinian solidarity work as a Jewish necessity, so as to end apartheid in our name in a peaceful manner. Here is the news from the Brandeis chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine:
As part of the 8th International Israeli Apartheid Week, Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine (BSJP) will launch its first Israel Apartheid Week. The week is aimed at educating the Brandeis community on Israel’s apartheid policies towards Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the Gaza strip, as well as within its own borders. The keynote speaker for the week will be Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada and a prominent figure in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Ali Abunimah said today: “I was excited to meet members of Brandeis SJP at the recent BDS conference at UPenn. I am glad they are bringing the discussion about justice in Palestine to Brandeis. Because of the US role in helping Israel maintain a deeply unjust situation, this is a discussion that ought to happen on every campus. We need to break out of old ways of thinking, to understand how we can act here to help bring justice, equality and peace to everyone who lives in the land some call Palestine and others call Israel. I hope to engage with students of every perspective during my visit.”
Ridgely Fuller, a social worker from Waltham who worked in Gaza after the 2009 attack, will talk about devastation and resilience in Gaza. Ridgely was one of the 37 passengers on board “The Audacity of Hope,” the U.S boat that was part of a 10-boat freedom flotilla aimed at breaking the Israeli siege on Gaza.
Three Brandeis activists will share their experiences with Palestinian solidarity work: Renana Gal, Israeli conscientious objector, will talk about her refusal to serve in the Israeli Army in a militarized society. Seth Grande (U.S) and Noam Lekach (Israel) will talk about their solidarity work with Anarchists Against the Wall and the ongoing popular Palestinian struggle against the Occupation and land annexation in the West Bank.
Jazi Abu Kaf, General Director of the Regional Council of the Unrecognized Villages, will speak about the ongoing dispossession of Arab-Bedouins from their native lands by the Israeli Government. Abu Kaf will discuss the recent plan by the Israeli government to displace some 30,000 Arab-Bedouins from their homes and demolish their villages. He will also address the connection between the ethnic cleansing in the Negev/Naqab (South Israel) and the Jewish National Fund.
In the keynote address, Ali Abunimah will make the case for defining Israel as an apartheid state, and will give his solution, as presented in his book One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. “There is already one state in Israel/Palestine; a state based on structural and institutional discrimination, a state in which Jewish citizens enjoy rights and privileges that are denied to Palestinians, in other words, an apartheid state” said Elisha Baskin (Graduate student, 2012).
We Brandeis students, Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, are showing our solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation. We believe in a reality in which all the inhabitants of Israel/Palestine will live in peace and full equality. We refute the attempts to cast Palestine solidarity work as anti-Semitic or as anti-Israeli. Resisting Israeli apartheid is anti-Israeli as much as resisting Jim Crow was anti-American.
*Brandeis SJP does not have a stance regarding the “one-state” or the “two-state” solution.
Great news & glad JVP is a co-sponsor. The Dersh better get busy- he has his work cut out for him next week!
I’m proud of the sponsoring student group. Years ago (1980s) I attended a Kahane speech at Brandeis and stood in line with everyone else to be inspected by police before entering the auditorium. At least on the score of “security” Kahane was “controversial” and Brandeis let him appear. Now Brandeis will allow a rostrum to Ali Abunimah, and others, whom some at Brandeis will consider “controversial”.
It’s a fine thing and the best sort of place for it to happen.
I don’t like the sort of vicious back-and-forth that sometimes happens at such events, but I hope this will not be just another instance of “preaching to the choir.” it would be interesting to have a poll taken of Brandeis students — before and then after this event — on attitudes toward Israeli occupation practices, lawlessness, settler “price tag” and other violence, etc. To see if the conference makes a difference at all.
When and where is Abunimah speaking at Brandeis? I have googled and searched Brandeis’s web site and looked at EI and can’t find a clue.
Harry Clark
http://questionofpalestine.net/2012/01/23/liberal-citizenship-not-jewish-identity/
I will be there!!
ah yes
freedom fighters storming (peacefully) the citadel of jewish higher education
with israel firsters labeling them antisemites and self-hating jews
shades of hitler’s minions calling willy brandt (whose resistance to naziism forced him to flee his homeland) a traitor
yet lo & behold, post ww ii mr brandt being elected chancellor of germany
and how’s that for a self-hater making good?
which raises the question, post-delegitimization of the zionist entity, will renana gal be elected president of the new multiethnic palestine/israel?