In case you haven’t seen the colorful posters hanging in Bender Library and Ward, the first week of March has apparently been designated as Israel Apartheid Week. According to the Web site listed on the posters, this means a time for “[educating] people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a global BDS movement.” Look, there’s nothing wrong with raising awareness for the Palestinians. The problem here is that doing so in the loudest, most controversial way possible does more harm than good.
I could go on about how Israel isn’t actually “apartheid,” and how throwing the term around like a political hackeysack is disrespectful towards those who suffered under the horrible South African regime. I could talk about how Americans and Europeans routinely forget about how the wall between Israel and the West Bank helped stop the Second Intifada — a massively bloody uprising between 2000 and 2004. Americans may forget that there were stretches when one couldn’t go two days without reading about how someone assisted the uprising by blowing himself up in the middle of a public space in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.
But none of that matters. Because that’s not what this “apartheid week” is really about.
While I’m sure that there are some people involved in this event who truly do care about the plight of the Palestinians, it’s hard to see how they’re going to be helped by this “BDS” campaign. We’ve seen this before, particularly after the 2008 strike on Gaza, when the most hardcore pro-Israel and Palestine groups take on parts in the long-running soap opera of “Who’s The Bigger Victim?” where self-promoting “intellectuals” seek to vilify a people who live thousands of miles away on behalf of another, more oppressed group.
If people are going to attempt to take on the voices of these oppressed, then they need to realize the moral qualms involved in representing human lives. As much as the worldwide media is obsessed with the extremists on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians can be just as critical of themselves as they are of each other. Peace is obviously in their best interest, and the majority of the people who actually live there undoubtedly want — and deserve — to live in a world free of air raids, rocket attacks and suicide bombings. And it’s unfortunate whenever the cause gets pushed back because someone with a megaphone decides to treat a complex struggle as if it’s the Super Bowl. The ultimate irony is that a movement against “apartheid” happens to contribute to the ongoing polarization between supporters of Israel and Palestine.
With that said, I do not condone many of Israel’s actions against the Palestinians. To be sure, I believed the Gaza War to have been conducted in the most destructive way imaginable, and I agree with President Barack Obama’s insistence on a settlement freeze. But it is unfair to ignore Hamas’ brainwashing, anti-Semitic television programming and use of human shields that harm the Palestinians just as much as anything Israel has done. What the planners of Israel Apartheid Week do not understand is that being pro-Palestine does not mean you have to be anti-Israel; security on both sides will ultimately lead to the long-sought peace. But if we are going to get serious about this, we must keep in mind the best interests of those who live there and deal with the struggle every day. Let’s talk, not scream.
Isaac Stone is a sophomore in the School of International Service and the College of Arts and Sciences and a liberal columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
