War On Campus
Palestinian sentiments are being injected into the anti-war issue.
after the new Palestinian Authority prime minister is
confirmed in the coming weeks. And international
pressure for a peace agreement is likely to mount
once the Iraq war ends.
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Washington
ince military action against Iraq began,
American college campuses have erupted in
Guessing At Tactics
protests against the war — many of them
But
not everyone thinks the Palestinian perspective
including aspects of pro-Palestinian, anti-
will
catch on. "It could easily work to the pro-Israel
Israel rhetoric.
point of view," said Jonathan Snow, 22, a senior
"I personally think that" the Iraq war and the
who writes a biweeekly column on the Middle East.,
Israeli-Palestinian conflict are "really related," said
for the Johns Hopkins campus newspaper in
Shaun Joseph, 22, who heads Students Against War
Baltimore.
on Iraq at Brown University. Joseph, a non-Jew who
Facts on the ground, he said, may work to Israel's
describes himself as a socialist, characterizes the two
advantage:
Palestinian supporters who claimed that
conflicts as acts of "U.S. imperialism — both in the
Israel would take advantage of the war with Iraq to
U.S. support of Israel's actions against the
Palestinians and in this direct war on Iraq."
Jewish leaders fear that the anti-war
activists' support for the Palestinians may
help bring the Palestinian message to a
broader audience. Experts say anti-war forces
represent a minority on campus, but they are
far more vocal than the war's supporters.
Analysts note similarities to the opposition
to the Vietnam War two generations ago,
when anti-war forces comprised only a frac-
tion of the student body but gained so much
attention that they profoundly influenced
the country.
With students transfixed by the war —
MTV, which has sent a correspondent to
Kuwait, says young people rank the war as
their top issue of interest, alongside drugs —
Jewish leaders fear anti-war protesters could
introduce the Palestinian agenda to a huge
Pro-Israel supporters counter-protest the Palestinian Solidarity
Conference held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
audience.
"You're going to have all these young peo-
last October.
ple engaged in discussion or concern about
the Middle East in the context of the Iraq
commit human rights abuses have been discredited.
war who will have been exposed to potentially very
Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist groups such as
hostile" messages about Israel, said Wayne Firestone,
Islamic
Jihad have launched attacks on Israel ostensi-
director of the Center for Israel Affairs for Hillel:
bly
to
show
solidarity with Iraq, and Palestinian vol-
The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life.
unteers reportedly are flowing through Syria to fight
"If the teach-ins they go to and the rhetoric
they're hearing at the rallies are all anti-Israel because U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
In any case, not only do most college students
that's who's running the anti-war protests on cam-
mirror
the general U.S. public in sympathizing with
pus, then there's a serious concern that they will be
Israel,
but
polls have shown that 18- to 35-year-olds
affected by that," he said.
support the war on Iraq more than their elders do.
According to Jonathan Kessler, leadership develop-
And several campuses showed signs.of support for
ment director for the American Israel Public Affairs
U.S. troops once the war began.
Committee, "The anti-Israel activists on campus have
Most Jewish students back the war with Iraq,
made a strategic decision to embed themselves into the
sources
say. Among those who oppose it, many are
anti-war movement" so they can "engage large numbers
turned
off
by the anti-Israel — and sometimes anti-
beyond their traditional coalition of disenfranchised."
Semitic — undertones of the anti-war activity.
"They're willing to soft-pedal their anti-Israel ani-
"It gets really frustrating when the two issues are
mus for the time being, or at least until U.S. policy-
directly linked," said Daniella Risman, 19, Hillel co-
makers are no longer focused on Iraq," Kessler said.
President Bush has pledged to present the interna- chair at Oberlin University in Ohio. Jewish oppo-
nents of the war feel "their issue is being tainted,"
tional "road map" toward Israeli-Palestinian peace
S
.
.
4/11
2003
18
said Risman, who worries that Oberlin students will
link "anti-war and anti-Israel sentiment as one."
But not everyone agrees. Eric Bukstein, a senior in
Judaic studies at the University of Michigan, said pro-
Palestinian activists aren't really becoming a major part
of the anti-war movement. To amass the broadest sup-
port possible, anti-war activists are wary of distracting
students with too many messages, Bukstein surmised.
Bukstein added that his university — which has
large Jewish and Arab student populations and host-
ed the second national student conference of the
Palestinian Solidarity Movement last fall — has
become an incubator for activity around the coun-
try. Another Palestinian solidarity conference is
planned for Rutgers University in October.
For now, most Jewish students say they feel rela-
tively secure on campus. They hail their advances in
defending Israel since the start of the intifada
(Palestinian uprising), when they were shocked by
the intense anti-Israel, and even anti-Semitic, activi-
ty on American campuses.
In the last two weeks, three anti-Semitic incidents
have occurred at the University of Florida: Someone
shouted "Death to the Jews" outside a Jewish sorority
house and swastikas were drawn on a Jewish student's
car and scratched into a Jewish teaching assistant's
desk. The incidents occurred despite the fact that
supporters of Israel are stronger than their oppo-
nents at Florida, according to several students at this
week's AIPAC policy conference in Washington. "I
feel like it has to do with the war," Florida sopho-
more Nina Alexander-Hurst, 20, surmised.
Negative Faculty
Complicating issues for Israel backers, pro-
Palestinian sentiment runs deep in academia, espe-
cially in many humanities departments, experts say.
While many university administrations have
responded to anti-Israel activity with diplomatic dia-
logue, most faculty remain identified with the
Palestinians, according to Edward Beck, president of
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, an interna-
tional network of pro-Israel faculty.
"It's not politically correct for faculty to stand for
Israel on college campuses," Beck said. Most faculty
members, said Firestone, including Jewish ones, show
"little or no interest in affiliating or expressing public
support for Israel," while there is a "vocal core of aca-
demics in America who are very hostile to Israel."
The silence of most professors could be due to a
desire to remain neutral in order to maintain their cred-
ibility, or their devotion to research and teaching rather
than political activism. Yet given a professor's influence
over students, anti-Israel sentiment among faculty
members could force Jewish groups that have focused
on training student advocates to alter their strategy
"We're starting to see that the solutions of student
empowerment are not going to suffice if you contin-
ue to have either incidents or problems with hostile
faculty members," Firestone said.
Addressing the faculty's stance is "the next major
issue for our community to be looking at more criti-
cally," he said. "Whatever the solution is, it will
require faculty members to be part of it."
But he added, "I don't think we're anywhere near
the answers." Li