Propaganstist Posters Provide Disturbing Implications

Author: Wasim Rahman

Last week, a sign reading "Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel" appeared on campus. Alongside it, another poster proudly asserted: "Supporting Israel does not mean opposing a Palestinian state." Both posters are sponsored by Hillel, the Jewish students' organization on campus, and are part of a nationwide campaign to reverse growing criticism of the Israeli government on college campuses. This article aims to illustrate why, to an informed audience, both posters are nothing more than propagandist, simplistic attempts to confuse our student body.

At first glance, there is really nothing disturbing about the first poster. Through the statement, "Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel," our Jewish peers are asserting that they support the Jewish state. They are demonstrating to the college community that there are students here who support the Israeli government. This is significant because thus far the New Left and Islamic Society signs and banners criticizing the Israeli government have been very visible throughout campus. To a student with no information about Hillel, it teaches us that Israeli supporters do, in fact, exist on our campus.

That said, the sign has more serious and deeply troubling implications. Instead of stating "Wherever we stand, we stand for peace and justice," it only sides with Israel, ignoring entirely the policies of the Jewish state. Certainly, one could argue that peace, justice and the policies of the Israeli government are synonymous. However, this understanding of Israeli policies is highly suspect, given the heated debate and accusations of war crimes committed by the Jewish state, revealing a very biased understanding of the conflict.

The slogan is an excellent example of the blind faith that many in our community have for a foreign government which they, for the most part, have absolutely no say in. I doubt that there are more than a handful, if any, members of Hillel who voted in the last Israeli election, which brought the hawkish Prime Minster Ariel Sharon to power. I remember on the eve of his election, several outspoken Jewish members of the college community, including several who have lived in Israel, expressed their dismay that Sharon would win. Today, do they support the policies of Sharon, wherever they stand?

I seriously doubt if any Jewish students on campus are actively involved in determining the policies of the Israeli government. As a consequence, by stating that wherever they stand, they "stand with Israel," they are openly announcing their allegiance to country that is not accountable to them in any way. This is inherently wrong.

It amazes me that while within Israel there is an active debate between the Labor and Likud parties and between right-wing expansionists and peace-loving leftist members of Gush-Shalom, our Hillel has declared total allegiance to the country, no matter who within the Israeli political arena gains control and determines policy.

If they have no say in what Israel does, they why do they support it unfailingly? The problem, consequently, is that it is simply wrong to pledge allegiance to the Israeli state irrespective of what it has done and will do to the Palestinian people.

Imagine if, during the Bosnian conflict, students of Serbian heritage hung signs across campus reading, "Wherever we stand, we stand with Serbia." How would our community react? As a community, we would acknowledge and welcome that Serbian students have a naturally affinity to their ancestral homeland. However, we would question their blind allegiance to the Serbian government and beg them to reconsider their support the malicious Milosevic regime. Today, we know that the Serbian government sanctioned concentration camps and systematically raped and pillaged Bosnian villages.

Similarly, only yesterday the Associated Press reported that the Israeli government would not allow the United Nations (UN) to send a fact-finding mission into the Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank town of Jenin. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both accused the Israeli government of war crimes in the past week. If the Israelis genuinely stand for peace and justice, then why don't they let the UN see what they have done to the Palestinian people? More interestingly, will Middlebury Hillel have to amend their posters to read, "Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel, when it does not commit war crimes" once the fact finding mission is completed?

At the risk of overstating my point, I would like to draw one final conclusion: our campus community should recognize the important difference between the Islamic Society, the New Left and Hillel. The Islamic Society and the New Left have pledged no support, let alone blind allegiance, to any foreign government. Both groups are actively working to ensure that our American government reexamines its misguided policies in its unshakable financial and military support of the Israeli government. The Islamic Society, specifically, does not want to see the United States sanction further Israeli military occupation of Palestinian towns and villages. Together with the New Left and other students of conscience, we are an interfaith, interethnic and international movement that focuses on policies and principles of self-determination, international law and human rights, not on ethnicity or necessarily religion.

Another sign that has been widely circulated on campus reads, "Supporting Israel does not mean opposing a Palestinian state." This statement is false. While there are many reasons why this statement is false, it is sufficient to only provide one piece of evidence: Jewish settlements. The Israeli government has, for over three decades, financially and militarily supported Israeli immigration into the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights in an attempt to colonize it. According to the article "The seeds of conflict sown in settlements," published by The Boston Globe on April 21, there are over 400,000 expansionist Israeli citizens living inside the West Bank who seek the "divinely delivered restoration of 'Big Israel, like it was in the Bible, with a big part of Jordan, a big part of Syria.'" Thus, the Israeli government has supported an expansionist policy that only furthers the conflict. The number of settlers has doubled in the past decade alone.

The Israeli government has pursued a policy of building settlements, even in dense cities such as Hebron, and bulldozing nearby Palestinian houses to ensure the security of the settlement. Secretary of State Colin Powell recognized the destructive nature of settlements, stating that the Jewish state must recognize that the time has come to recognize the "the destructive impact of settlements and occupation, both of which must end" (New York Times, April 18).

Logically, if Hillel supports the Israeli government, with no exceptions, they it is essentially opposing the creation of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians will not accept such blatant colonization and will never accept a peace treaty until they know that all the lands the Israelis occupied illegally in 1967 will be returned to them. They do not want over 200,000 Jewish fundamentalists who believe it is their responsibility to expel the "Muslim filth" (USA Today, September 4, 2001) from the homes their families have lived in for the past 2,000 years.