This is a dismal story, about the resistance of the western mainstream to an understanding of the occupation of Palestine. It is reminiscent of the Salaita case in Illinois; but it took place at the London School of Economics.
In October, the Palestine Society staged an exhibition in the student union to dramatize the conditions of Palestinians under occupation, so as to explain the wave of stabbing attacks. A report on the exhibit says it emphasized the legal right of Palestinians to resist occupation.
On the stairs leading up to the 1st floor of the Students’ Union, there were several posters depicting the ongoing violence in Occupied Palestine. The first poster shows Palestinian resistance and made the argument the meaning of the word “Intifada” has been manipulated to mean something it is not. It made the point that “Intifada” means a political uprising and that its literal translation is “to shake off”. In this context, it would translate to “shake off the Israeli occupation through a series of political protests.”…
Throughout the duration of the event a video was on replay; it was composed of more than 10 short clips compiled to create a 30 minute-long video. Each clip addressed a different political situation, including the statistic released by ‘Defense for Children International–Palestine’, noting that around 500-700 Palestinian children are arrested, detained, and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system each year.
It seems that the exhibit was somewhat like things we have published about the ongoing attacks in Israel and Palestine, emphasizing Israel’s extrajudicial killings. The Jewish Chronicle in England notes that the exhibit contained images of injured and slain Palestinians.
It displayed a series of graphic images of injured Palestinians without background details or context.
Without the pro-Israel context, they mean! Well pro-Israel students complained, and now the London School of Economics administration has issued a condemnation of the exhibit, on November 30. Ben White reports at Middle East Monitor:
Yet a month later, in a statement published on November 30, LSE declared that the university was “deeply troubled” by the Palestine Society exhibition. Despite emphasising that “the law was not broken”, LSE said that “the apparent celebration, even if unintended, of violence and perpetrators of violence caused significant distress to students who identify with victims of that violence.”
White says that the school administration’s statement was lacking in specifics, and it overrode an investigation by the student union finding no problem with the exhibit. He adds:
For LSE to issue a public reprimand of a student society’s activities, without any law being broken and outside of any formal investigation or disciplinary process, is highly unusual.
The Israeli embassy promptly tweeted out the school’s reprimand, and White reports that the British Israel lobby played a role in the school’s decision:
A key role though seems to have been played by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. On November 19, the Board announced that president Jonathan Arkush, together with representatives of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) and LSE Israel Society, had met with LSE Pro-Director Paul Kelly and other senior officials “to raise strong concerns regarding recent activities of the Palestine Society.”
Kelly’s position makes him one of the top administrators at the school. White:
This week, the Board claimed that “following [this] meeting”, LSE wrote to say it was “deeply troubled” by the Palestine Society’s “celebration of violence”….
Arkush bragged on his influence to a Jewish publication: “Following my meeting with senior academic leadership at LSE, the University has stated that it was deeply troubled by an exhibition mounted on campus by the Palestine Society…”
Ben White reports:
The Board of Deputies of British Jews has a long-established track record of advocating for Israel and attacking Palestine solidarity activism. Their recently-elected president, Jonathan Arkush, meanwhile, has a reputation for stifling even mild criticism of Israeli policies.
According to Arkush, claiming to be speaking in the name of British Jews, “we lobby unashamedly for Israel.” This ignores, of course, the activism of groups like Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, and many other individuals.
When Benjamin Netanyahu visited Britain in September, Arkush described protesters as a “howling mob, some of them with their faces covered in keffiyot [sic], in true terrorist style.” A former senior official at the Board slammed Arkush for a “grovelling, sycophantic” speech to the Israeli premier.
The matter is reminiscent of the Steven Salaita case because the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign chancellor, who has since resigned her job partly over the scandal, responded to pro-Israel complaints about Salaita’s Gaza tweets 16 months ago by meeting with donors to the university, then peremptorily firing Salaita. Some of Salaita’s tweets were startling, but they were immediate responses to a massacre of children.
PS. LSE has also lately removed an anti-Zionist commentary from a student group’s human rights blog on the LSE website, saying editorial guidelines were not followed. In it, Sandra Nasr, a lecturer on the Middle East at Notre Dame University in Australia, asserted: “Zionism, the ideological project to secure a Jewish homeland, relies upon notions of separateness, superiority and entitlement”. Gideon Levy said very much the same thing in Westchester in October.
This reminds me of Gerry Gable, the Jewish(maternal side) founder of Searchlight, the formerly leading anti-fascist magazine in Britain.
Gable is all about combating neo-Nazis and fascists – but wants to protect Jewish apartheid at all costs. I don’t think Gable is unique in his hypocrisy.
Tony Greenstein(a true liberal, who opposes all forms of Apartheid, Jewish or non-Jewish) wrote about it eloquently a few years ago:
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2012/06/death-agony-of-searchlight-anti-fascist.html
We have to understand that bigots like Arkush don’t get elected without broad support even from supposed “liberals” like Gable – who only subscribe to liberalism because it protects them as minorities. Ergo, they do so out of racial/ethnic self-interest in a diaspora, not because they are principled people like you or Tony. The true test is *always* how they respond in situations where they are the majority. In this case, that’s Zionism.
That’s when the mask falls and you see who they truly are.
The Gable’s of the world are not alone. We see the same thing in America with Susan Talve or the editor of the supposedly “liberal” the Forward, Jane Eisner, who supports settlements in the West Bank and approves an ethnic cleansing campaign in the same territories as “pragmatic”(her endorsement of the Bennett-inspired annexation of large parts of the WB).
This is why I always smile when I hear about the supposed Jewish liberalism. Sure, on social issues you can make a case for it. But the democrats have long been ultra-right wing on the super wealthy and even the just mildly wealthy in this country. What was the Clinton presidency if not a long march to the right on every economic issue? Obama has fixed the most pressing problems but the Democratic party remains one which heavily favours the rich.
In the UK, Labor is much more radical and we see Jews voting 64% or more for the conservatives(via the Jewish Chronicle in their pre-election poll). Same story in France.
And that’s just on economic issues. If Jews are so liberal, why have we created an Apartheid state in the Middle East? I don’t believe in determinism, political or otherwise. Jews were heavily liberal not long ago, but in the postwar era that has slowly but steadily eroded. Arkush is a logical conclusion of such an evolution.
Some of Salaita’s tweets were startling, but they were immediate responses to a massacre of children. – See more at: https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2015/12/palestinian-students-pressure#sthash.XEvyiIRF.dpuf
Salaita wished that all West Bank settlers would go missing. This was not an immediate response to a massacre of children. It was in response to reaction to the kidnapping of the three settler teens.
I’m confused. Isn’t the whole point of the occupation: the demolitions, the destruction of villages, the massacre of Gazans, the settler shootings of Palestinians, the burning of olive groves, the harassing checkpoints, the incarceration of children, the torture of prisoners and all the rest, an organized campaign to make the Palestinian people “go missing”? Salaita wishes it on settlers. Israel does it to Palestinians. And Salaita’s the bad guy?
RE:“The Board of Deputies of British Jews has a long-established track record of advocating for Israel and attacking Palestine solidarity activism. Their recently-elected president, Jonathan Arkush, meanwhile, has a reputation for stifling even mild criticism of Israeli policies.” ~ Ben White
SEE: “Board of Deputies Treasurer Laurence Brass Resigns to Speak Out on Israel” | by Tony Greenstein | azvsas.blogspot.com | 20 February 2015
SOURCE – http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2015/02/board-of-deputies-treasurer-laurence.html