|
The Battle for Hearts and Minds
A Look at Israel Activism on Campus
by Jonathan Hirsch, University of Chicago
Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, advocates for Israel have been engaging in a seemingly endless campaign to win support for the nascent Jewish State. While this battle has been relatively easy to win in America, Israel’s supporters have found American college campuses to be less than hospitable to their beliefs. The University of Chicago is no exception, despite its storied history as the birthplace of modern conservative thought.
 For the past five years, there have been overt and repeated anti-Israel acts on campus that have contributed the hostile environment that pro-Israel students face. Following a trip to Lebanon, a U of C alumnus and campus library employee decided to hang a souvenir from his trip to Lebanon in the main campus library, the Joseph Regenstein Library. The souvenir that he hung up was a Hezbollah poster showing a clenched fist holding an automatic weapon with Arabic wording that read, “Indeed, the party of God, they are the victorious.” Members of Chicago Friends of Israel (CFI), as well as several professors, pushed the library staff to remove the poster from the library. Former CFI president Talia Magnas expressed the outrage of the pro-Israel community:
It’s a clear endorsement of terrorism…[The poster] has no place in a university setting. It has been referred to as a personal souvenir. That’s highly offensive...This was on display and not part of an exhibit.
The library refused, and the poster was not taken down until student newspapers publicized the incident. Even more shocking to the students and faculty was the fact that the Center for Middle Eastern Studies did not condemn the poster prior to its removal.
Vandalism has unfortunately become a recurring event at the U of C. During each of the past four years, flyers advertising CFI events have been targeted for defacement. Prior to a celebration of Yom Haatzmaut in 2002, swastikas and anti-Semitic messages were drawn on posters advertising this celebration of Israeli independence. In 2003, CFI organized an event entitled, “Why I Am a Zionist.” Soon after advertisements were posted for this event, new posters with a format exactly like the originals’ were hung up, containing phrases that ridiculed the event such as “Why am I a Zionist?” That year, swastikas were carved into other CFI posters. During the celebration of Yom Haatzmaut in 2004, CFI launched the “Made in Israel” campaign. Fliers that advertised Israel’s contribution to the fields of medicine, computer technology, environmentalism, and fashion were posted. They were defaced with slogans such as “Also made in Israel: the Sabra and Shatila massacres.” This year, CFI hosted a speech by Michael Oren, the author of Six Days of War. Within hours of the advertisement for this event being posted, several fliers had swastikas drawn on them, and many were torn down. On one poster, a hole was burned through the picture of Mr. Oren. Several posters advertising CFI’s free falafel and hummus event in celebration of Yom Haatzmaut were defaced with slogans such as “Stop stealing the Palestinians’ food.”
Defacement of fliers is not the only activity that contributes to the hostile environment on campus. In May of 2001, a speech by David Horowitz was stopped due to student heckling and conflict in the lecture hall. In April of 2002, a 12-page manifesto was posted on a message board in a dormitory. The manifesto contained swastikas, anti-Semitic cartoons, and anti-Semetic hate speech. A school-sponsored lecture series, entitled “The World Beyond the Headlines,” has featured only one pro-Israel speaker since its beginning in 2003, but has featured Rashid Khalidi four times. A 2004 panel event on Israel’s security fence, which was organized by an academic center at the university, featured four anti-fence speakers including Norman Finkelstein. The event was organized by the Middle Eastern Studies Students’ Organization, which is the official student organization of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and was supposed to examine different “perspectives” on the security fence.
Though the campus atmosphere seems bleak, Chicago Friends of Israel is working to make the University of Chicago more hospitable to pro-Israel students. Through active and positive programming, CFI educates students about Israel, highlighting Israel’s democratic government, human rights record, and efforts to protect minorities. We work constructively with the university administration and other student groups to combat all forms of hate speech. The support that we have received from the university, as well as outside organizations, has enabled us to continue to be effective advocates for Israel.
Jonathan Hirsch is a junior majoring in Biology and Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is the president of the Chicago Friends of Israel.
|
