University of Illinois wall
This is a post about denial by two Israel lobbying organizations, Hillel and the Jewish United Fund (of Chicago). It involves the erection of a mock separation wall at the University of Illinois.
The chairman of the University’s Hillel lately sent out a letter to friends bragging on Hillel’s response to the wall, erected by Students for Justice in Palestine at the university.
Note that Hillel tries to shift the focus to Syria and the Holocaust, and that it questions the university on why it allowed the wall to be built.
Shouldn’t they be asking the Israeli government that question?
Signatory Jeff Kaminsky is the Hillel chairman. The letter is also signed by Rabbi Rogério Z. Cukierman and Erez Cohen, Israel Fellow at Hillel. The Jewish United Fund, a large Jewish community organization in Chicago, helped out.
Notice the desire not to bring attention to the conflict. Also note that the Jewish groups worked with a conservative campus organization. The lobby knows no party. Excerpt of letter (thanks to David Green):
As part of a campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel, they [SJP] built a large wall in the middle of campus and organized events that tried to establish a parallel between Israel’s policies in the West Bank, and South-African Apartheid. While the comparison is a blatant misrepresentation, the truth is that the wall did attract attention from our campus community.
How Hillel and JUF’s Israel Education Center responded:
We increased our Israel-related programming, organizing a professors’ panel about the crisis in Syria, a lunch session about the Israeli myth of Masada and a candle vigil at the quad for the commemoration of Yom HaShoah, which attracted more than 100 people. Altogether, over 250 people attended the events organized by Hillel – many more than the numbers SJP attracted to their three events; IEC Israel Interns and other Hillel students had their letters published by the Daily Illini, the students newspaper;
We organized our events in cooperation with other student organizations, such as Interfaith in Action, College Democrats, Illini Conservative Union, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity and Amnesty International – focusing our efforts on helping people develop a deeper understanding of the conflicts in the Middle East, and of the potential effects of anti-Semitism;
We are working with University officials to understand how the wall, a semi-permanent structure, was allowed to be built and remain in the quad for five days.
We have been strategic about our response, avoiding actions that would only bring more attention to the aggressive message put out by SJP and other Israel detractors.
I like the wall, brilliant idea.
They need to add a slogan saying ‘Israel delegitimizes Jews.’
Turn the tables on their delegitimizing Israel meme….lol.
They need to meet the counter protest as this posting did — by asking how a panel on Syria is at all relevant to the 64-year old Israel/Palestine problem and the Sharon/N’yahu wall (and refusal to contemplate a peace based on small changed from 1967 lines). POINT OUT how misleading the opposition is (delegitimize Israel? Hunhhhh? How about delegitimize the occupation!)
We increased our Israel-related programming, organizing a professors’ panel about the crisis in Syria
and did the professors explain how the crisis in syria was related to israel?
Was this the University of Illinois at Champaign or the University of Illinois at Chicago?
And did these other campus groups know that by co-sponsoring these programs with Hillel, Hillel would claim that they support its agenda of delegitimizing the wall and its “parallel between Israel’s policies in the West Bank, and South-African Apartheid.”? Might these other groups think twice the next time that Hillel asks them to co-sponsor a program adding not only their names but their student numbers to Hillel’s pro-wall spin?