"Atshan's most recent foray beyond the ivory tower is the inaugural Swarthmore College Israel/Palestine Study Trip, but he has long worked to build bridges from academia to the front lines of social justice and peace activism. As a graduate student at Harvard, he organized a similar spring break study trip to Israel/Palestine; the program has endured and is in its eighth year. He has also partnered in projects with Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees....'On page 15 is a cross-referenced report by Bulletin managing editor Carrie Compton headed "Trip of a Lifetime". Illustrated, as you can see here, by, respectively, "Rainbow in Jericho; Palestinian potter; Lunch in Hebron; Dome of the Rock", it tells us:
'Over winter break, 19 students from Sa’ed Atshan ’06’s Israeli-Palestinian Conflict class spent 10 days in that region of the Middle East, meeting with top humanitarian figures on all sides of the conflict. The journey was free for the entire class, thanks primarily to funding from an anonymous donor.
Though the trip occurred during a break in the academic year, the students found it as demanding as any other Swarthmore experience.
“They were rigorous, emotionally draining days filled with phenomenal meetings,” says Omri Gal ’19, whose parents are Israelis from Jerusalem. “I can’t even count how many times I’ve been to Israel before this, but this was something else entirely: an all-access, insider’s trip.”
The group’s itinerary swept the region, with stops in Israel and the West Bank: Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Negev, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Hebron. On each day the travelers spoke with about 10 of the area’s most influential peace activists, including Israeli and Palestinian Swarthmore alumni, during meetings that began at 8 a.m. and typically ended around 10 p.m.
“We really got to see every single aspect of the region’s struggles from the conflict zones, which as a tourist, you’d never be able to do,” says Gal. “The vast majority of students came away from the experience with an incredible amount of hope for the situation, because the people we met were so full of strength and resilience.”
“One of the inspirations for this trip was to help students better think about how they can be engaged globally,” says Atshan, “and how they can contribute to the amelioration of suffering and creating a more peaceful and nonviolent world.”
Professor Atshan’s course on the Israel-Palestine conflict is slated again for fall 2016, but funding for another trip has yet to be secured.'So who precisely did fund this trip? Swarthmore? Soros? CAIR? ...
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| Revolutionary Student Brigade poster, 1975 |
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| American campus anti-Israel activity some 40 years later, here and below |
'[W]hy should anti-Semitism flourish in the sweet groves of academe rather than in the fouler corridors of power? How does intolerance for a Jewish state thrive in the very institutions that advertise their tolerance for threatened minorities?.... On what grounds do American universities, considered liberal to a fault, assail the only liberal democracy in that part of the world?
The question harbors its answer. Israel is attacked not despite but on account of its liberal democracy and its buoyant pluralistic culture: two commodities held in notable disesteem in the nominally liberal but in fact anti-liberal environment of the contemporary American university. The boycotters wrap themselves in the mantle of free speech only to silence those who stand for the kind of genuine individual and human rights that flourish in Israel. They shout down liberal speakers like Israel’s ambassador to the United States just as they shout down and shut out champions of Muslim women’s rights.
In these respects, today’s anti-Israel campus coalitions are heirs to the anti-liberal coalitions that raged in the 1960s against the war in Vietnam and against the traditional American values embedded in America’s constitutional culture....
Wholly negative in its goals—indeed, a prototype of the negative political campaign—anti-Semitism promised and still promises progress not through social reform, which must be seen to keep its promises, but through destruction, symbolized in the destruction of what the Jews have attained.
The anti-Semitic component of modern anti-liberal ideologies like fascism, Communism, pan-Arabism, and now Islamism has allowed alliances to form among otherwise competing groups, thereby facilitating anti-Semitism’s acceptance and normalization and in turn gaining for these ideologies a greater durability than they could likely achieve without it. On the merits, Arab and Muslim students could never have persuaded their American peers to sympathize with repressive regimes and homegrown terrorists; blaming the Jews for these and other deformities was the key that unlocked the door.
In the campus culture of victimhood ... someone must be cast as the invader. It was thus inherent in the “logic” of left-wing campus politics that the anti-American revolutionaries of yesteryear would morph into the so-called pro-Palestinian protesters of today; once Arab and Muslim students began pressing the case against Israel in the familiar terms of victimized natives vs. Western imperialists, they filled the vacuum previously occupied by Students for a Democratic Society. It tells us much that the cause of anti-Zionism, forged and perfected in Stalinist Russia, should have become the strongest legacy of the phony “idealism” of ’60s radicals, and anti-Jewish campus coalitions their logical heirs....'Read the entire brilliant, disturbing, insightful, wide-ranging article here
'As an Israeli reservist who had been stationed in the West Bank, I sat in disbelief as the speaker described attitudes and policies that were entirely divorced from reality....
I had no idea what he was talking about or what motivated him to lie.
He did not describe the Israel or IDF that I know so intimately.
As a reservist and a soldier, I had been stationed in the West Bank. My job was to protect the Palestinians’ human rights, coordinate humanitarian aid, and tend to the needs of civilians living in the West Bank. I always felt that Israel’s concern for the welfare of the Palestinians was impressive, and I was proud to be part of it.
My experience taught me that even during wartime, Israel made it a priority to meet the needs of Palestinians even though they had made themselves enemies of the State of Israel by launching the second intifada.
I recall that during my service in Hebron, I had to adhere to international humanitarian law and ensure that the soldiers in the Judea Brigade were educated about the Geneva Convention and the rules of engagement—or face punishment. We sometimes went beyond these strict rules to help Palestinians. Once, when I served in my unit’s headquarters, we arranged a complex operation so that my unit, with the help of another unit, could save the life of a Palestinian boy living in Gaza whose mother had died. We did some investigating, and discovered that his uncle lived in Ramallah. In a special operation in the middle of the night, we moved the child to his uncle so that he would not be left alone in the streets of the Gaza Strip.
It was torture for me to sit there quietly and listen to the distortions of this former soldier who had served during the most violent period of the second intifada (2000-2003), when suicide bombers and snipers were wantonly murdering Israeli men, women, and children. But he never described the terrorism that forced the IDF to take measures to protect our families....
He went on making outlandish claims. He said the IDF is actually an anti-Zionist army because it operates in the West Bank. He added that there is no more terrorism today, so Israel had no reason for its security measures. He apparently forgot why there are dramatically fewer terror attacks today, or maybe he just didn’t want to mention that it might be because of Israel’s heightened security.
.... He claimed the Palestinians have no security forces—even though they do, and my unit worked closely with those forces on a daily basis. The speaker either did not know, or was told to say that.
I worked almost five years to protect civilians, human lives, and their dignity in the West Bank. I spent the most important years of my life to make sure the IDF protects human rights and lives up to the Geneva Conventions, to protect my army and my people. Yet this speaker, in a matter of 45 minutes, invalidated my entire military service, accusing me of the very things that I worked so hard to prevent....
If he has complaints about the IDF, he should be an activist in Israel. Soldiers don’t always do the right thing or live up to the IDF code. They should be disciplined. Israel’s policies can be debated. But Israel is constantly examining itself critically, and debates in Israel are energetic and promote the full variety of views. Why, then, would he come to the U.S. to complain about his own army?.... I wondered what kind of twisted thinking would make a person who lives in a vibrant democracy, where he can campaign for his political positions, instead ask outside forces to pressure his country? What motivated him? Is he a post-nationalist who doesn’t want Israel to exist at all?'Read more here
'My name is Ben Shapiro. I'm an alumnus of this university. I'm also a local talk show host on 870 [AM] in the morning, and I got out of bed and left my one month old baby there when I saw what was going on here tonight. I've never been more ashamed to be a Bruin. I've never been more ashamed to be an alumnus of this university than to see this divestment petition being considered at this level. To pretend this is about occupation, to pretend this is about peace, to pretend that this anything other than vile, spiteful Jew hatred is a lie!
There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Saudi Arabia. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Iran. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing Palestine. There is only one reason we are discussing Israel and not discussing the vast bevy of human rights violations that happen every day in the Middle East, exponentially worse that what happens in Israel.
Any gay or lesbian that is targeting Israel in this room seems to have forgotten how high they hang gays from cranes in Iran. Every person of liberal bent who suggests that Israel is the problem in the Middle East seems to have forgotten that there is only one country in the Middle East that actually has any sort of religious diversity in it. The countries that are apartheid countries are those that are Judenrein – like, for example, Palestine.
So, for us to sit here and pretend that Israel is somehow on a lower moral plane is a direct manifestation of anti-Semitism. And to hold Jews to a different moral standard than any other country or group on the face of the earth represents nothing but an age-old and historic hatred for the Jewish people. All the folks here who are pretending that the B.D.S is about anything other than that, I would like to see a poll of those folks, and see how many of them actually believe in the existence of a Jewish state, qua-Jewish state, not as a state like any other, but as a Jewish state. They don't. They don't acknowledge that existence. They don't believe in that existence. They don't believe in peace. All this is about, pure and simple, is a desire to target the Jewish people." [Emphasis added]Go here for the transcript and accompanying video, which can also be seen on William Jacobson's post linked to above.
"This movement calls on all academics to examine and re-examine ongoing and completed research, for questionable sources, and where necessary, to retract and disavow portion that originate with biased writers—however veiled or fashionable their speech. While dissertations and theses cannot be changed after their publishing, addendums may be added, like this one."
'As an Israeli artist and scholar, and as a secular liberal humanist, it is a source of great anguish for me to know that one of the writers to which I refer in my doctoral dissertation turns out to be a rabid anti-Israelist, anti-Zionist and, for all intents and purposes, an anti-Semite.
According to her vocal activism, Judith Butler ... believes that Israel is a colonialist occupier and an inhumane oppressor....She and others like her often equate Israel with South Africa, mischaracterizing it as a violent Apartheid state.
Butler’s views are manifestly acted upon through her support of the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose aim is to continually vilify and isolate various aspects of Israeli society—especially academia.
Such characterizations of Israel, propagated by Butler and her cohorts, amount to biased, false propaganda. When Butler expresses such views, she betrays a lack of knowledge of the ancient and modern Israel, one that represents dangerous ignorance at best, and at worst—willful, ideological erasure.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a complex one. Butler seems to lack both an informed historical context and basic, on-the-ground factual information needed to make fair observations. (She is of course a professor of rhetoric and comparative literature, and not a scholar of Middle East history.) This leads her and her cohorts to reduce challenging geopolitical conflicts to surprisingly simple binaries of oppressor and victim, good and evil...
.... And yet there is much irony here. The country Butler vilifies is the only thriving democracy in the Middle East where someone like her—a woman, a lesbian, and a political agitator—would be protected. The people in whose name she purports to speak, however, would oppress, punish and possibly put her to death merely for who she is.
In light of this selective blindness, it can only be surmised that Butler et al are operating with a special kind of bias, a scapegoating that is all too familiar to students of history. To those who would distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, I retort there is no difference: to be anti-Israel is to be anti-Jewish. Israel is the Jewish state.
Of course, the other great irony is the fact that Butler herself is Jewish. Despite this fact, she seems to have little to no appreciation for her people’s history and the kind of deep memory and moral responsibility it entails. Instead, she opts to identify with neo-Leftist academics whose zealous and sanctimonious policing of global injustices have cultivated this special and disproportionate animosity toward Israel. Instead of allowing her own persecuted status as a Jewish lesbian to inform a subtle, empathic interpretation, Butler seems to preemptively apologize for her own academic success and social acceptance by self-effacingly criticizing her own people—a classic and all too common unconscious self-hatred (See Marx, Arendt, Chomsky, etc.)
.... Unfortunately, Butler’s behavior is symptomatic of the false sense of security that many American Jewish intellectuals suffer, now 70-plus years removed from the gas chambers of Europe. As though it could never happen again.
Apparently, it bears repeating: The Jewish people have a painful history. Centuries of exile, persecution and violence culminated in the well-organized European Holocaust. This finally lead the community of nations in 1948 to help re-establish the State of Israel where it had always been, two millennia before the advent of Islam or the Roman word Palestine. And while Jews agreed to share the land with the peoples who had since taken up residence there in their absence, their unfriendly neighbors rejected the offer. Israelis have been fighting ever since to safeguard their extremely small country, the only viable safe haven away from historic European anti-Semitism and now its Western and Islamic manifestations.
Therefore, Butler’s characterization and neat distinction between Israel as colonialist and exploitive, and Hamas and Hezbollah as ‘leftist’ and ‘progressive’ (her words) ... is bizarre as it is fundamentalist. Her strange sympathies with and tacit activism on behalf of such known terrorist organizations calls her understanding, judgment and therefore her scholarship into question. If she is interested in colonial land-grabbing and oppression of a native people, she could start much closer to home.
Butler is of course not alone. She is a product of American and European academia, where, to prove their grasp of and allegiance to ‘progressive politics,’ many a provincial professor cynically and expediently jumps on the politically correct bandwagon of the decade. In this particular case, ground zero for this misguided and dangerous anti-Zionism has indeed been California institutions of higher education .... where Butler has used her tenure to help breed a resurgent and virulent anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism from the Left....
So uncomfortable has the situation gotten in academia, with both veiled and overt anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hostilities, that I can no longer remain silent....
I am a proud Jew and a proud Israeli. I come from an historic, beautiful and friendly country that has given much to world civilization. In its recent reincarnation as a modern state, Israel continues to bestow its gifts—scientific, technological, literary, artistic and academic. I brought my intellect, inquiry and scholarship to Penn State, as well as my sense of social justice to help improve the campus community in the four-and-a-half years I was there. Had I known of Judith Butler’s unconscionable politics, as they were brewing, I never would have included her writings along with mine. Let it be known to any reader that I lament the inclusion of biased and socially irresponsible writers in my dissertation, and I am confident that history will vindicate me.' [Emphasis added]
'This is not 1939. The Jewish People Live. No amount of preaching of anti-Semitic propaganda on college campuses will ever be effective, so long as we in the Zionist community fight back. No amount of lies and hatred spewed out of the mouths of cowards and traitors to their own people will ever keep us silent. We, my friends and I, we protested last week. We held up signs that said “False” and “Inaccurate” every time the lecturers said something incorrect. We shouted out, we booed, we asked questions, we were defiant. And we will keep being defiant and you should too. If you ever find out anything like this is happening in your community, speak up, take action, fight back; we must never be made to go down the dark road of pogroms and anti-Jewish laws again, not here, not elsewhere, not ever. But it can start with a pamphlet. It can start with a book. It can start with an anti-Israel organization or a lecture on a college campus in New Orleans, Louisiana. So stand up and be counted. Zion, rise up.'See the entire article here (hat tip: reader Ian)
"I went along to this 'pinkwashing' campaign against Israel, in essence its 'gays for palestine' yeah I know right? Like saying 'blacks for kkk', I had two signs on me, one saying 'I support gay rights, that is why im against your vision of 'river to the sea' palestine. palestinian gays are persecuted by their governments in their territories, they seek refuge in Israel and are accepted', the other one says 'If hamas and fatah form a coaltion will they rename themselves FATASS?!"(Hat tip: reader Shirlee)
"The council of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) declares its support for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
A broad coalition of Palestinian non-governmental organizations, acting in concert to represent the Palestinian people, formed the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Their call was taken up in the United States by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. A NAISA member-initiated petition brought this issue to NAISA Council. After extensive deliberation on the merits of the petition, the NAISA Council decided by unanimous vote to encourage members of NAISA and all who support its mission to honor the boycott.
NAISA is dedicated to free academic inquiry about, with, and by Indigenous communities. The NAISA Council protests the infringement of the academic freedom of Indigenous Palestinian academics and intellectuals in the Occupied Territories and Israel who are denied fundamental freedoms of movement, expression, and assembly, which we uphold.
As the elected council of an international community of Indigenous and allied non-Indigenous scholars, students, and public intellectuals who have studied and resisted the colonization and domination of Indigenous lands via settler state structures throughout the world, we strongly protest the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the legal structures of the Israeli state that systematically discriminate against Palestinians and other Indigenous peoples.
NAISA is committed to the robust intellectual and ethical engagement of difficult and often highly charged issues of land, identity, and belonging. Our members will have varying opinions on the issue of the boycott, and we encourage generous dialogue that affirms respectful disagreement as a vital scholarly principle. We reject shaming or personal attacks as counter to humane understanding and the greater goals of justice, peace, and decolonization.
As scholars dedicated to the rights of Indigenous peoples, we affirm that our efforts are directed specifically at the Israeli state, not at Israeli individuals. The NAISA Council encourages NAISA members to boycott Israeli academic institutions because they are imbricated with the Israeli state and we wish to place pressure on that state to change its policies. We champion and defend intellectual and academic freedom, and we recognize that conversation and collaboration with individuals and organizations in Israel/Palestine can make an important contribution to the cause of justice. In recognition of the profound social and political obstacles facing Palestinians in such dialogues, however, we urge our members and supporters to engage in such actions outside the aegis of Israeli educational institutions, honoring this boycott until such time as the rights of the Palestinian people are respected and discriminatory policies are ended."As a distinguished American scholar, political scientist Michael Curtis, author of Jews, Antisemitism, and the Middle East, opined not long ago:
"One never ceases to be amazed at the obtuseness on the issue of boycotts of proponents of BDS, some of whom are affiliated with prestigious educational institutions ...
In their partisan advocacy and hostility to Israel they show an astonishing ignorance of life in the Middle East countries as well as of the true nature of academic freedom.
Contrary to the expressed opinion of some BDS supporters there is nothing vague about academic freedom. It denotes a free exchange of ideas and opinions, an exchange in which the validity of those ideas can be examined and challenged, and which is not limited either internally in a particular country or externally. John Stuart Mill knew that free inquiry is the basis for acceptance or rejection of wrong or incorrect ideas and information.
Supporters of BDS have tried to qualify their position by suggesting that their call for action is against institutions not individuals. But this is a sleight of hand evasion of the truth.
A public university or academic institution even if funded wholly or partly by public funds does not take a stand, but individual academics who pursue knowledge or make pronouncements may do so. The President of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, like the President of Rutgers University in New Jersey, does not make pronouncements on abortion, or military cuts, or nuclear weapons in Iran.
Nor do the Presidents of Tel Aviv or Haifa universities issue proclamations as university policy on the nature and destiny of the disputed territories.
Much of the argument of the BDS people is equally ignorant and nonsensical: false accusations that Israel is an apartheid system; that its legal system rests on inequality; that its military authorities interfere with the access of Palestinians to higher education and to hindrances of free speech and assembly.
They refuse to acknowledge that the Israeli government probably has more internal critics than has any other country, that the academic system is open to all who qualify, and that academics contribute to scientific research that may be useful for public purposes in the same way as is the mode in Western countries. The BDS critics seem to know little of the real facts about the operation of Israeli universities in their call for boycotts....
One of the astonishing aspects of the ignorance of the BDS advocates, in Berkeley, New York, or Princeton, is that they take no heed of or are ignorant of the fact that Arab students will be severely hurt by any boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
Can the conclusion be drawn that they think that Arabs should be punished, that Arabs are upholders of the system they regard as evil and apartheid, and that the Arabs are equally guilty of the collective and individual punishment of which they declare Israel is culpable?"More good sense from Michael Curtis here
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| Swarthmore's Parrish Hall |
'Unanimously adopted by Swarthmore Hillel Student Board, December 8, 2013
Whereas Hillel International prohibits partnering with, hosting, or housing anyone who (a) denies the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders, (b) delegitimizes, demonizes, or applies a double standard to Israel, (c) supports boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel;
And whereas this policy has resulted in the barring of speakers from organizations such as Breaking the Silence and the Israeli Knesset from speaking at Hillels without censorship, and has resulted in Jewish Voice for Peace not being welcome under the Hillel umbrella;
And whereas this policy runs counter to the values espoused by our namesake, Rabbi Hillel, who was famed for encouraging debate in contrast with Rabbi Shammai;
And whereas Hillel, while purporting to support all Jewish Campus Life, presents a monolithic face pertaining to Zionism that does not accurately reflect the diverse opinions of young American Jews;
And whereas Hillel’s statement that Israel is a core element of Jewish life and a gateway to Jewish identification for students does not allow space for others who perceive it as irrelevant to their Judaism;
And whereas Hillel International’s Israel guidelines privilege only one perspective on Zionism, and make others unwelcome;
And whereas the goals of fostering a diverse community and supporting all Jewish life on campus cannot be met when Hillel International’s guidelines are in place;
Therefore be it resolved that Swarthmore Hillel declares itself to be an Open Hillel; an organization that supports Jewish life in all its forms; an organization that is a religious and cultural group whose purpose is not to advocate for one single political view, but rather to open up space that encourages dialogue within the diverse and pluralistic Jewish student body and the larger community at Swarthmore; an organization that will host and partner with any speaker at the discretion of the board, regardless of Hillel International’s Israel guidelines; and an organization that will always strive to be in keeping with the values of open debate and discourse espoused by Rabbi Hillel.'As the ADL has observed, Jewish Voice for Peace
'is the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States....
In the past few years, JVP has become a leader in the American anti-Israel movement and has assumed a particularly visible role in the renewed Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.... Although JVP focuses on boycott and divestment campaigns that specifically target Israeli settlements and the "occupation," the group notes that it supports more radical BDS campaigns that call for a complete economic, academic and cultural boycott of Israel....
JVP, like other prominent Jewish anti-Zionist individuals and groups, uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility. JVP even recognizes its role as such, noting on its Web site that it is "inspired by Jewish tradition" and that the group's Jewish nature gives it a "particular legitimacy in voicing an alternative view of American and Israeli actions and policies" and the ability to distinguish "between real anti-Semitism and the cynical manipulation of that issue."...'See also NGO Monitor's strictures here: the actual mission of JVP, NGO Monitor's exposure of the organisation warns, is to
'Drive a “wedge” in the Jewish community over Israel while mainstreaming boycotts, divestment and sanctions campaigns (BDS), so as to weaken U.S. support for Israel.'(More on JVP's mischief here - and, update, here)
'Thank you for sending me your resolution and for your offer to engage in conversation. I believe that through discussion, as Hillel the Elder believed, comes learning that is meaningful and inspiring. However, unlike your email, which invites discussion and is welcome, your resolution simply states that the students at Swarthmore Hillel “will host and partner with any speaker at the discretion of the board, regardless of Hillel International’s Israel guidelines.” This position is not acceptable.
Hillel’s Israel guidelines, which were developed carefully with a broad coalition of our organization’s stakeholders, state: “Hillel welcomes a diversity of student perspectives on Israel and strives to create an inclusive, pluralistic community where students can discuss matters of interest and/or concern about Israel and the Jewish people in a civil manner.” Hillel is also, as the guidelines state, “steadfastly committed to the support of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders as a member of the family of nations.”
In summary, while welcoming debate on the many important and difficult questions that Israel faces, a debate that is vigorous in Israel as well, Hillel International does draw a line. That line is as follows: “Hillel will not partner with, house or host organizations, groups or speakers that as a matter of policy or practice: Deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders; Delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel; Support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel; Exhibit a pattern of disruptive behavior towards campus events or guest speakers or foster an atmosphere of incivility.”
I hope you will inform your colleagues on the Student Board of Swarthmore Hillel that Hillel International expects all campus organizations that use the Hillel name to adhere to these guidelines. No organization that uses the Hillel name may choose to do otherwise.
Your resolution further includes the statement: “All are welcome to walk through our doors and speak with our name and under our roof, be they Zionist, anti-Zionist, post-Zionist, or non-Zionist.” This is simply not the case. Let me be very clear – “anti-Zionists” will not be permitted to speak using the Hillel name or under the Hillel roof, under any circumstances.
Hillel recognizes, of course, that “organizations, groups or speakers that as a matter of policy or practice” violate these guidelines may well be welcomed on campus, according to the policies of the particular college or university. The Hillel on campus, however, may not partner with or host such groups or speakers. This is entirely within our discretion as an organization, and we have clearly stated our intention to make these important decisions to protect our values and our critically important mission. Just as the university decides who will teach classes, and what organizations it will allow on campus, so Hillel will decide who will lead discussions in programs it sponsors and with whom it will partner.
In one of your resolution’s clauses, you invoke “the values espoused by our namesake, Rabbi Hillel, who was famed for encouraging debate in contrast with Rabbi Shammai.” Rabbi Hillel was famed for his openness to others, and his leniency in legal interpretation to advance tikkun olam – “repairing the world.” This spirit is strong in today’s American Jewry, and it is strong in the work of Hillel on every campus. However, Rabbi Hillel is perhaps more famous for his saying in Pirkei Avot, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”
We here at Hillel International hold firm to his legacy. We encourage debate and dissent, but we draw the line at hosting groups who would deny the right of the State of Israel to exist. We will stand with Israel, the democratic, open, pluralistic home of the Jewish people.
On that fundamental principle, we are unwavering.'Yisrael Medad has a droll take on this here
