A 

month ago, University 
of 
Michigan 
Jewish 
leadership organization 
Hillel was celebrating Israel 
on the Diag with flags and a 
photo booth cutout of Israelis 
riding 
a 
camel. 
Meanwhile, 
the 
past 
few 
weeks 
have 
been a time of suffering and 
remembrance 
for 
Palestine 
and its diaspora as it reflects 
on the 70th anniversary of “Al 
Nakba,” or “The Catastrophe” 
in Arabic. Al Nakba was the 
exodus of more than 700,000 
Palestinians from their family 
homes and land to neighboring 
countries where many of them 
still live as refugees today. 
On May 14, under President 
Donald 
Trump’s 
directive, 
the 
United 
States 
officially 
opened its embassy to Israel in 
Jerusalem, recognizing the city 
as capital of Israel. Moving the 
Israeli capital has been a point 
of contention as the gesture 
seals Israeli sovereignty in the 
contested city of Jerusalem. In 
response, tens of thousands of 
Palestinians attempted to cross 
the fence separating Gaza from 
Israel. In typical Israel Defense 
Forces fashion, the Palestinians 
were met with gunshots and 
tear gas resulting in 58 dead and 
more than 2,700 injured. 
Scrolling 
through 
social 
media over the past week, I’ve 
seen a mixture of reactions to 
the current situation in Israel 
and Palestine. Many of the 
strong, 
passionate 
activists 
I know on campus have been 
going out of their way to support 
Palestinians via social media 
by sharing articles and raising 
money for relief funds. Others in 
my social network have reacted 
differently, 
sharing 
articles 
and long posts about the bias 
against Israel, particularly in 
the media, and casting them as 
the victim in this situation. I 
can’t help but find these claims 
of bias against Israel ridiculous. 
Israel has always, and will 
probably continue to, receive 
blind support from much of the 
Western world – particularly 
its media – and it benefits from 
too much systemic power to be 
considered a victim in this case.
There has been a worldwide 
favorable bias for Israel since a 
little over a century ago when 
Britain released the Balfour 
Declaration 
proclaiming 

support for the concept of a 
Jewish 
state 
in 
Mandatory 
Palestine. In 1947, Britain ended 
the 
declaration 
and 
pushed 
the Palestine debate to the 
international community. With 
the passage of United Nations 
Resolution 181 by a two-thirds 
majority, the global community 
solidified its support for Israel 
and its people by giving over 
half of Mandatory Palestine 
to Israel despite the fact that 
Israel’s population was a third 
of that of Palestine. As time has 
gone by, the United States in 
particular has shown unyielding 
support for Israel time and 
again. No country has received 
more economic or military aid 
from the United States than 
Israel since 1976. 

The media is certainly not 
biased against Israel. Much of 
U.S. media today, both liberal 
and conservative, is considered 
to be largely in favor of Israel. 
According to “The Israel Lobby 
and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John 
J. Mearsheimer and Stephen 
Walt, news sources like the Wall 
Street Journal predictably lean 
pro-Israel, but so do the liberal 
bastions 
of 
reporting 
such 
as the Washington Post and 
the New York Times. Despite 
this, 
the 
New 
York 
Times, 
Washington Post, and even Wall 
Street Journal have reported 
on the protests and Palestinian 
casualties despite these inherent 
biases. If even news sources that 
are considered part of the Israel 
Lobby are making out Israel to 
be the party at fault then that 
says something, and it’s not due 
to a bias against Israel.
All of this global support 
plays into the power imbalance 
between Israel and Palestine 
that makes it impossible for 

Israel to be the victim in this 
circumstance. The protests of 
tens of thousands of Gazans 
trapped behind a fence and a 
multitude 
of 
blockades 
may 
not 
have 
been 
completely 
peaceful, but they were more 
than justified. Gazans protested 
using burning kites while the 
Israeli 
military 
responded 
with rifles, snipers and tear 
gas. Of the more than 2,700 
protesters 
injured, 
at 
least 
half of the injuries were due to 
gunshot wounds. Among the 58 
Palestinians murdered in the 
Gaza protests were teenagers 
and a baby girl; 8-month-old 
Layla Ghandour died Monday 
after inhaling large amounts 
of tear gas. Palestinians simply 
do not hold enough political or 
military power to be the villains 
in this situation.
When living on a liberal 
college campus full of clubs 
and activists drawing attention 
to important and controversial 
political issues like the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, it can be 
easy to lose perspective on these 
issues. While the pro-Palestine 
community may be significant 
on campus, this is simply not 
the case in a country where 
the 
president 
declares 
the 
international city of Jerusalem 
the sole capital of Israel. It is 
important to remember that 
outside the bubble of university 
life, the government and media 
are still strongly in support of 
Israel and Palestinians continue 
to suffer due to that fact.
However, 
there 
are 
ways 
to 
influence 
the 
situation 
outside 
of 
Ann 
Arbor. 
An 
easy start is sharing articles 
and keeping people in your 
network aware of the injustices 
Palestinians endure every day. 
There are also plenty of relief 
funds that donate food and 
medical supplies to Palestine. 
However, if we want to see 
long term changes in the state 
of Palestine, it will take more 
than that. In order to change 
the way the United States 
treats Israel, we must be more 
conscious about not voting for 
politicians who are supported 
by the Israel lobby and pressure 
the government to stand up 
against Israel’s human rights 
violations. 

5
OPINION

Thursday, May 31, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

interest 
of 
the 
public’s 
physical 
safety. 
However, 
no 
similar 
rationale 
exists 
between 
voting 
disenfranchisement 
of 
ex-felons and the sacred right 
to vote.
This is not to say that other 
exclusions from voting-rights 
protection are invalid. Minors 
and the mentally incapacitated 
are also excluded from these 
protections, just as they are 
unable to independently sue or 
enter into contracts, because 
they are considered to lack 
the requisite mental capacity. 
Such 
voting 
restrictions 
meet the strict criteria for 
encroachment on fundamental 
rights, because they exclude a 
particular group based on their 
incapacity to comprehend their 
own best interests. Acting in 
the name of self-interest, after 
all, is central to the voting 
process. 
In contrast, while it may 
be tempting to use the moral 
failures 
of 
ex-felons 
to 
justify a reduction in their 
public 
participation, 
their 
classification 
as 
a 
group 
is not based on a question 
of mental capacity. Their 
disenfranchisement 
is 
therefore incongruent with 
the other provisions Congress 
has made for restrictions on 
suffrage.
There 
are 
recognized 
state interests served by the 
imprisonment of felons. It is 
punitive. It restricts ex-felons’ 
autonomy and protects society. 
Additionally, it deters criminal 
action by would-be felons. 
These justifications, however, 
only hold up as long as a felon 
is still serving their sentence. 
After release from prison and 
completion of parole, a felon 
has fulfilled the punishment 
deemed proportionate to their 
crime, and the need to protect 

others from their behavior has 
accordingly been reduced or 
eliminated. At this point, any 
semblance of legitimate state 
interest is outweighed by the 
demonstrated need to extend 
and preserve suffrage.
The 
right 
to 
vote 
has 
not always been received 
as 
sacred 
throughout 
America’s 
long 
history, 
just as “We the People” 
has not always included all 
peoples. Bitter struggles to 
extend the franchise to all 
qualified Americans shows 
the power of voting and 
the justice achieved when 
more citizens are able to 
take part in selecting their 
representatives. 
The last episode in this long 
crusade is the holdover of felon 
disenfranchisement from an 
era of unscrupulous political 
motivations 
and 
severely 
entrenched 
inequality. 
Disenfranchisement 
of 
ex-felons 
has 
proved 
damaging 
to 
the 
ideals 
of 
American 
democracy, 
carving out exceptions to the 
electorate without adequate 
justification.
Voting is a right that must 
be afforded the protections 
provided to other crucial 
institutions, such as speech 
and privacy. Allowing states 
to nullify the natural-born 
right to vote for millions of 
Americans beyond repayment 
of their debts to society 
neither meets the standards 
for disenfranchisement nor 
serves the legitimate interests 
of the public. As such, it is 
time to amend suffrage to 
include all capable citizens, 
regardless of past criminal 
convictions.

Audrey Gilmour can be reached at 

audreymg@umich.edu.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION

Readers are encouraged to submit letters 
to the editor and op-eds. Letters should 
be fewer than 300 words while op-eds 
should be 550 to 850 words. Send the 
writer’s full name and University affiliation to 
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Expand the Franchise by Ethan Kessler continued below:
AUDREY GILMOUR | COLUMN

“When living 
on a liberal 
college campus 
full of clubs and 
activists...it can 
be easy to lose 
perspective on 
these issues.”

Ethan Kessler can be reached at 

ethankes@umich.edu.