They have grants of $200 to dish out, Israeli soldiers to promote and events to suggest, like a “Hummus not Hamas” party. StandWithUs, the right-wing pro-Israel group, is gearing up to combat the annual “Israel Apartheid Week,” when college campuses host speakers and put on events highlighting Israeli violations of human rights.
A document Mondoweiss obtained reveals details of the strategy StandWithUs, which works closely with the Israeli government, plans to employ to fight back against “Israel Apartheid Week” (IAW). In addition to giving out money and suggesting events, StandWithUs is also concerned about how Israel’s treatment of African migrants will be portrayed by Palestine solidarity groups on campus, and how IAW plans to promote the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
In an e-mail I received addressed to “Israel Advocates,” Lihi Benisty, the New England Campus Coordinator for StandWithUs, encourages recipients to “go through” the attached document, which details the “many resources for you that StandWithUs has to offer.”
“This is a confidential document, so please do not distribute it,” writes Benisty. “If you think this could help another student leader or Hillel staff, please put me in touch with them and I’ll be happy to share it.”
Attached to Benisty’s e-mail is a PDF document (read the whole thing below) authored by Brett Cohen, the national campus program director for the group.
“Israel Apartheid Week will be taking place from February 24th to March 2nd this year and may be coming to your campus. IAW is celebrating their tenth anniversary and recent BDS ‘victories’ at academic conferences, so if the campaign is coming to your campus, don’t be surprised to see a larger IAW effort this year than in years past,” the document says.
StandWithUs suggestions for events to combat IAW include running an “I Heart Israel Campaign” and “hosting fun events” like a “Buy Israeli Goods” action day. And if students take video footage of buying a bunch of Israeli goods, StandWithUs wants to help them edit it–and make it go viral. The group also recommends “writing op-eds to your school paper, which StandWithUs can help you write and/or edit for publication.”
One part of the StandWithUs document focuses on African refugees in Israel. “A hot issue right now, for example, is the African refugee issue in Israel,” the group states. “SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] is using this issue to make Israel look awful, but Israel was the only country in the region to take in people fleeing genocide in Sudan, while Egypt was shooting at them while trying to get to freedom in Israel. Now that there is relative peace in their home countries, Israel would like to send them back, but many want to stay in Israel for economic opportunity.”
There’s also a section where the right-wing group shows pro-Israel organizations the money. In addition to the $200 in “microgrants” it offers to combat IAW, StandWithUs also offers “higher levels of funding for special circumstances, so make sure to keep open lines of communication with your campus coordinator and let them know what you are planning.”
Over half of the money StandWithUs receives from donors goes to programming on college campuses, the Jewish Daily Forward’s Nathan Guttman reported in 2011. And as the journalist Eli Clifton reported for Inter Press Service in 2009, the group’s donations come from “a web of funders who support organisations that have been accused of anti-Muslim propaganda and encouraging a militant Israeli and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.”
The group also coordinates with the Israeli government, as the Forward’s Nathan Guttman reported. In July 2011, they released a video featuring Danny Ayalon, then Israel’s deputy foreign minister, saying that the words “occupied territories” are incorrect. In March 2011, an Israeli consul general met with StandWithUs in Olympia, Washington in the aftermath of a food co-op voting to boycott Israeli products. Ayalon told Israel’s Channel 10 that “we are using…StandWithUs for leverage” in the fight against the Olympic Food Co-Op.
In November 2010, StandWithUs members disrupted a Jewish Voice for Peace meeting in California and pepper sprayed two people.
Here’s the full StandWithUs document:
we’ll save you the trouble Lihi, this way everyone can prepare.
i have an idea. they could set up a booth with students just pretending (less expensive) to buy a bunch of Israeli goods (if SWU could fork out the goods, oh, maybe that is what the cash is for?) and film it! that would probably be a more efficient way of guaranteeing some awesome footage just in case students don’t rush on ahava or sabra or whatever.
and if SWU is doing the editing they could merge all the efforts together from around the country and make it appear as tho hordes of students are rushing to buy these products. and then you can say the boycott is actually inspiring students to buy more and more goods from israel. and all with money or goods SWU supplied the students for the making of the video.
wow, that’s really a great idea. in fact, if they do it, i’m going to link to my comment and claim it as my idea. i’m so practical.
Now that there is relative peace in their home countries, Israel would like to send them back
Wow. Even the ass-covering qualifier “relative” can’t save this blatant lie.
SWU will always fail because they depend on their audience being partially engaged AND racist.
It’s much easier to shovel their hasbara down our throats if we A) don’t really care about Israel/Palestine except to stop for 5 minutes outside their poster presentation on our way to the cafeteria and B) we get our main consumption of daily events/histories from television media.
Funny, because I was never in fact contacted by Mondoweiss, and this isn’t the first time they’ve falsely claimed to have sought out a comment from me. If they had, I would have told them that I’m delighted that people are taking the unhinged hate-fest called Apartheid Week seriously, and we’re looking forward to a lot of conversation and debate this semester!
Every US response to StandWithUs Israel is what Americans call “softball”. The love of Israel and fear of rejection inhibits these people from an appropriate response, therefore Israel only gets worse. That is why it has reached this stage of outrage after more than 50 years of over-the-top adulation of everything Israeli. Every time I see “Stand With Us”, I personally blush with shame and embarrassment.
How about:
“BlushWithUs”
“Bedouin Demolition Party”
“Burn Israeli Goods” Action Party
“IQuestionIsraelCampaign”
“Likud – I’m not in the mood”
Just for Starters.