Re: Israel “apartheid” debate reignites, Feb. 8
It certainly sucks being Jewish on campus these days. As a mature student returning to school, I have to say that at best, the constant bombardment of anti-Israel propaganda creates an unsafe feeling for Jews on this campus. At worst, it promotes hatred and historical revisionism. And it all fabulously culminates during the so-called Israeli Apartheid Week. What’s funny, though, is that besides the angry rhetoric-which discounts the realities of suicide bombings, extremist ideologies, and a people’s 3000-year-old history in the region-the political left has lined up behind this propaganda in an unthinking, ignorant mass. Let’s not forget that the land now known as Israel was renamed Syria Palaestina by the Romans in 132 CE, in order to erase any memory of the native Jewish inhabitants who were expelled. As a leftie and an Israeli, these anti-Israel campus events make me ashamed. It’s not my nationality that shames me, but rather it’s my affiliation with a morally and intellectually bankrupt left.
Tamara Mishan
• It appears that Ben Spurr’s assertion that “nothing much has changed” since the inception of Israeli Apartheid Week is true. Ending “Israeli apartheid” has been the celebrated cause of those who, as Spurr notes, would be dissatisfied with anything other than a one-state solution that would demographically asphyxiate the state of Israel. Theirs is certainly not a new argument-indeed, enemies of dialogue and mutual respect have been attacking Israel’s basic right to exist for years.
On our campus-which ostensibly represents a diversity of viewpoints and expressions-I find it appalling that one department in particular has overtly colluded with those who wish to create an environment of hostility towards one identifiable group of students. As an NMC major and member of the NMC student union, it should not be too much to expect to be fairly represented and informed about a variety of events. I was therefore dismayed to receive an email from the NMCSU advertising IAW 2007, whereas when I requested-not once, not twice, but three times-to have a notice about a lecture delivered by Yossia Klein-Halevi, a balanced proponent of a two-state solution, circulated by the NMCSU, I was flat-out ignored.
It is disappointing that the university has once again failed to take action against an IAW planned to foment hate. Moreover, it is disconcerting that a student union, obligated to represent all its students, has acted in direct contravention of the ASSU constitution, stating that no union “shall discriminate on the grounds of…political…beliefs [or] activity.” Are the university and its affiliate organizations not above such discriminatory practices against its students?
Jeffrey Bernstein
