The world keeps changing. The Globe has a shocking story on Brandeis’s student senate tabling/killing a resolution to congratulate Israel on making 60.
The resolution sparked more than two hours of debate on the senate
floor on March 9, leaving some students in tears, according to a
senator who was there. Critics questioned whether it was appropriate to
have student leadership delve into Middle Eastern politics on a campus
that hosts students from 100 countries, some of which oppose Israel’s
policies.Such a resolution "shuts people like me up," said Lisa
Hanania, 20, a Christian Palestinian-Israeli student from Jaffa, a
mixed Arab-Jewish city outside Tel Aviv. "For me it’s 60 years of
Nakbah – Catastrophe – of the Palestinian people.""The senate is
not the place for a discussion about the State of Israel," said Senator
at Large Jessica Blumberg, 21, a junior from New York’s Westchester
County. "There are people going to Brandeis who are Palestinian
refugees."Following the discussion, student senators voted, 13
to 6, with one abstention, to "postpone indefinitely" a vote on the
resolution, effectively killing it.
A few comments: Brandeis is half-Jewish, it keeps blowing my mind. These kids are the most sophisticated about these issues in the country. I visited it last year and was stunned by the support I saw for Jimmy Carter. Zochrot visited it last month and was welcomed. Jessica Blumberg and Noam Shuster, an Israeli-American who has co-founded Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine, are clearly the way the arrow is pointing for young Jews. Wonder how many of Commentary Magazine’s readers are under 40?
Thanks to Joachim Martillo for the tip.
