question CMENAS’s decision to hold an event discussing a movement some equate with anti-Semitism. He explained CMENAS decided BDS is too vital a movement to not be discussed, claiming the movement is against a racist institution rather than a group of people. “Why hold an event like this after such a terrible tragedy?” Ali said. “Frankly, we considered canceling the event altogether. But violence is contagious … BDS is the most important global issue for thousands of students on the U-M campus. This nonviolent movement is part of who they are. BDS is not against any group, but against a racist structure that oppresses millions of people daily.” The first speaker was Susan Abulhawa, a political commentator, poet and founder of Playgrounds for Palestine. Abulhawa began her presentation by reading aloud some of Israel’s laws. One of these was a law put into effect this summer, which declared Israel as the nation- state of the Jewish people and downgraded Arabic from its official language status. Abulhawa then talked about the history of Palestine and Zionism. Seventy years ago, she said, Palestine was a thriving, pluralistic country with sophisticated businesses and infrastructure. She said this changed with the introduction of Zionism, which was seen as a movement for Jews to return to a land devoid of a culture and a people. “They said it was a land without a people for a people without a land,” Abulhawa said. She showed an image of an online recipe for falafel, calling it an Israeli dish. This, Abulhawa said, illustrates how Israel has co-opted Palestinian culture. “You get to see this kind of stuff,” Abulhawa said. “Israeli cuisine, falafel, shakshuka, hummus, which has nothing to do with Israel. Not only has Israel stolen our home, and our lands and our dignity, and our heritage. But they’re also stealing our culture and our story and our history.” Abulhawa continued to describe some of the Israeli government’s policies, including former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s instruction to Israeli soldiers to break Palestinians’ bones while he was the minister of defense. She said in response to these types of policies, and despite what she described as the U.S.’s perception of Israel as a start-up nation, protesters and activists in the BDS movement work to hold Israel accountable. The next speaker, Israeli sociologist and activist Tom Pessah, spoke of the difference between anti-Semitism and what he called “anti- Semitizing.” He delved into the history of anti-Semitism and explained anti-Semitizing is a way of equating criticism of Israel with the hatred against Jews. “The most common response that you see is what I would call anti-Semitizing, which means casting the words and the deeds of the opponents of Israel as resembling traditional anti- Jewish posts,” Pessah said. “This is a way of stigmatizing people as anti-Jewish in order to silence opposition.” This conflation is bad for everyone, Pessah said. He said he believes strongly in solidarity and noted he has found that while working with the BDS movement — a movement which he said works to end the Israeli occupation — to recognize equality of Palestinians, and to allow Palestinian refugees to return home. Pessah said BDS is a strong opponent of anti- Semitism. “BDS has been a model of solidarity from my knowledge of participation in the movement,” Pessah said. “You see many Palestinians, many Jews, many Israelis working side by side, acknowledging the rights of Palestinians as we said. But also, the BDS movement has been outspoken in combating anti-Semitism.” Huwaida Arraf, a civil rights attorney and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement talked about state policies targeting institutions that participate in the BDS movement. Arraf explained the foundation BDS is built on. “In 2004, Palestinian civil society, 170 organizations, unions, representing really all facets of Palestinian society, political factions came together and announced this call to the world to help us achieve our freedom by instituting the same kind of pressure on Israel that the world instituted against apartheid in South Africa that helped bring it to an end,” Arraf said. Arraf encouraged the audience to research and verify anything her or the other panelists discussed in order to form their own opinions. But she said she expects independent research will affirm her points. “Anything I’ve said here, I don’t expect you to take as a given — please go and research yourself to learn more about it,” Arraf said. “Anything that Susan said, anything that Tom said. We want people to do the research themselves and then I’m confident you will also sign on.” In November 2017, for the first time in the school’s history after years of attempts, Central Student Government passed a divestment resolution calling for the University to investigate several companies it had investments in which have contracts with the Israeli military. The Board of Regents later rejected the resolution. One student later asked how the panelists felt about the incidents of faculty and staff members declining recommendation letters. Abulhawa denied these actions were discriminatory, as the professors had originally agreed to write the letters before learning they wanted to study in Israel. “I don’t believe the professors were discriminating against the students,” Abulhawa said. “The professors were pointing out, they were discriminating against Israel if you want to call it discrimination. My understanding is that they had actually agreed to write recommendation letters for those students, but when they learned that these students were applying to a colonial institution, they exercised their conscience not to be party to that.” After these recommendation letter incidents, Shay Vaughn, an administrative partner and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advocate in LSA, said she received many phone calls about this issue. That’s why she attended the panel — she hoped to learn how to support as many people through DEI as possible. “When it comes to being the DEI advocate, I think there is a responsibility to know certain things, and I take that very seriously, so I shared this event out to everyone in the office,” Vaughn said. “I just really appreciate being allowed to be here.” “benchmarks” — university cities like Berkeley, California; Austin, Texas; and Madison, Wisconsin — have nonpartisan local elections. Since 2015, Lumm has introduced three ballot proposals before City Council to allow voters to decide if they want to get rid of partisan city elections. Each time, her proposal was voted down. Her most recent attempt in July 2018 fell one vote short of making the November ballot. “It is, frankly, very frustrating, because I think that while one can debate the merits of nonpartisan versus partisan local elections, there’s no argument that I can see for not allowing voters to decide the question,” Lumm said. Lumm said nonpartisan elections would shift the focus from Democratic primaries held in August to the November general election, when voter turnout is typically higher. “Ann Arbor is a clear outlier in holding local elections on a partisan basis. We’ve been an outlier for a very long time,” Lumm said. “… None of our traditional benchmarks have partisan local elections. So that fact, coupled with the fact that Ann Arbor residents have not had an opportunity in 60 years to weigh in on this, are compelling reasons why this question about nonpartisan elections should, I think, be on the ballot.” Lumm pointed out that despite the fact the council is composed primarily of Democrats, members still have disagreements and spirited debates over municipal issues, pointing out political parties are not particularly relevant in local races. She also said her efforts were not related to the fact that she is the only Independent on the majority- Democratic City Council. “This isn’t about me,” Lumm said. “Local elections are not philosophical, ideological issues where party matters. It’s best practice. We’ll have higher turnout, we’ll attract more qualified candidates. It would require more voter scrutiny on the issues or candidates’ positions on the issues and the candidates’ priorities, and those are all really good things. I think it’s just good government, and that’s why I think we should be doing this.” Jeff Hayner, D-Ward 1 candidate, disregarded party affiliation when he ran as an Independent against incumbent Democrat Sabra Briere in 2013. Hayner said he did so to spend more time talking about the issues central to his campaign. “I’ve been a registered Democrat since ’84,” Hayner said. “The Democratic Party is where it’s at. In 2013, I knew I didn’t really have a chance to win because the woman who held the seat was sort of a beloved figure in local politics. I ran as an Independent so I could go all the way to November and talk about two issues that I ran on, which hadn’t been talked about at the time, which was the Gelman plume — the dioxane plume that’s creeping under our city — and also our city’s woefully underfunded pension mandates.” Hayner said he focused more on the issues than political ideology. “I know we’re a heavily Democratic city — that’s pretty evident — but there’s all kinds of people that live here and some of them aren’t as interested in politics as issues, so I’m just more of an issues guy,” Hayner said. “I guess that would make me a moderate.” Councilmember Sumi Kailasapathy, D-Ward 1, announced she would not be seeking re-election in April, and endorsed Hayner, who then narrowly won the Aug. 7 primary in a contentious race against Ron Ginyard, who was backed by Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor. Ginyard, a retired financial adviser, faced criticism for his failure to vote in an election since moving to Ann Arbor four years ago, while Hayner received scrutiny over several uncouth tweets as well as his membership in the National Rifle Association. “It was closer than I would have hoped since he had never voted, which I think is sort of a big red flag for a Democrat, you know, but people are involved and active,” Hayner said. “There was a lot of get- out-the-vote efforts on one side or another. He had a backing from the current council majority, so you know, that’s a powerful lobby.” In the general election, Hayner is facing off against Ryan Hughes, a Democratic Socialist. Hughes said he ended up running as an Independent rather than a Democrat because, by the time Kailasapathy announced she was not running for re-election, he felt there wasn’t enough time for him to marshal the resources necessary to compete as Democrat. “I was worried if people saw the word ‘Independent’ on the ballot they would think I was just a Republican who was too ashamed to admit it or something like that,” Hughes said. “So I said, ‘I got to write Democratic Socialist on everything that I do.’ People have to know that’s what I stand for — I think this is the time and this is the place to be a Democratic Socialist right now.” Hughes centered his campaign around the issue of affordable housing in Ann Arbor. He has called for the city to intervene directly to provide low-cost public housing. Hughes said there was a dichotomy between those who believed the problem could be solved with market forces alone and those who were preoccupied with concerns that building new housing would cause the price of existing housing to increase. “That’s kind of been the spectrum of debate in the city, and I don’t think that either of those are very realistic plans, just in and of themselves,” Hughes said. “My whole point in running was kind of to say, there’s something else we could be doing. We could be tackling this problem more directly than either of those things will allow us to do.” Lumm said she plans to introduce the ballot measure again after the November election, once the new members of City Council are seated. “So in terms of next steps, where we go from here, I remain determined to provide voters an opportunity to decide this question and obviously I very much believe that we should afford residents the opportunity, not force folks to collect ballot signatures,” Lumm said. “If council rejects the ballot question for the fourth time, I am fully prepared to help folks obtain the necessary signatures.” come in and seek the support, we will find a way to work with your concerns.” Housing prices in Ann Arbor have long been on the rise. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median rate for rent in Ann Arbor has increased 14 percent from 2010 to 2015 and now sits at approximately $1,075 per month. Last spring CSG received backlash for its Campus Affordability Guide, which offered tips to make University living more affordable. Suggestions such as cutting down on housekeeping services, laundry delivery or limiting impulse purchases were deemed out of touch by much of the student body. Students responded negatively to the Guide, calling it “out of touch.” Public Policy senior Lauren Schandevel and LSA senior Griffin St. Onge, in collaboration with other student groups, wrote an abridged guide called Being Not-Rich at UM which improved the advice from “So in terms of next steps, where we go from here, I remain determined to provide voters an opportunity to decide this question ” “You see many Palestinians, many Jews, many Israelis working side by side, acknowledging the rights of Palestians as we said. ” 2018 FIR ST GE N WE E K NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily Students attend the First Gen? First Year? community gathering in a series of 2018 First Gen Week events in Couzens Hall Monday evening. First Gen Week continues until this Friday, with events on topics like mentorship, mental health, and networking. The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com News Tuesday, October 30, 2018 — 3A ELECTIONS From Page 1A BOYCOTT From Page 1A CSG From Page 1A Read more at MichiganDaily.com