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U of Chicago SJP’s Oren protest makes newspaper’s front page

April 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

The caption is straightforward enough. “Student and community protestors gather[ed] outside International House, where Israeli ambassador Michael Oren spoke Monday afternoon about a global response to Iran’s nuclear program, settlements in the West Bank, and his country’s standing abroad.”

After one particular campus administrator attempted to cage protestors behind something to the equivalent of a plastic Fisher Price playpen and after at least two other administrators unsuccessfully tried to keep protestors from utilizing public sidewalks, it comes as quite a surprise to see this photograph on the front page of the University’s newspaper.

The best part of it all is that the posters, at least the two on the right, are easily readable and pretty much sum up the point of the protest. [Read more...]

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‘U of Chicago wanted us to protest behind a cute little playpen’: Report-back from Oren protest

April 2, 2012 By 6 Comments

On Monday, April 2, the University of Chicago hosted Israeli ambassador Michael Oren to speak to a crowd at the International House about how Israel and America share parallel struggles and how relations between the two countries will determine whether or not the Middle East will ever see peace.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Chicago worked with students and community leaders to organize an emergency protest. The following is a report-back of what took place.

Before the event

The event was scheduled to begin on a Monday at 4:15 pm before the 9-to-5 workday even ended. The inconvenient timing of the event could have been a glaring sign that administrators and event organizers had consciously attempted to outmaneuver any expected protests. Nevertheless, SJP members and protest participants gathered at the appropriate location and at the appropriate time.

We were met by two UCPD officers, one uniformed and one plainclothed. Eric, the plainclothed officer, directed our attention to a plastic yellow fence across the street and all the way at a corner of a public park. [Read more...]

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Reworking the Palestinian Solidarity Movement

March 30, 2012 By 1 Comment

Two nights ago, a few friends and I shared a number of constructive criticisms about solidarity activism for Palestine. We now hope to share these with you and anyone else interested in efficiently taking advantage of the momentum this movement has seen over the last few years.

Guest contribution by Roqayah Chamseddine

There is much to be said in respect to the organization of the Palestinian solidarity movement: identity politics, the neglect of parallel struggles, natural allies etc.; there are the positives and negatives, but it is certainly recognizable on all fronts that there is room for change, in order to build a stronger and more unified movement.

Much of the movement’s networking involves circadian association with the Arab and/or Muslim community to such an extent that events are often solely focused on Arab and/or Muslim identities. These types of events, though important, are intended to boost the morale and bolster self interest associated with a specific bloc, therein becoming slightly ethnocentric. There is no need for the Palestinian solidarity movement to be branded with either an ethnic or religious identity, but this does not mean that distinctive cultural qualities associated with Palestine are to be ignored.

There should be no sacrificing of any ounce of any movements dignity for the sake of attracting outsiders so that they may join; this being said, events (re: Palestine) should discuss culture, language etc. all without forcing upon the movement an identity, as this should not be the sole avocation, as events will simply become massive orchestrations where one is preaching to the choir. [Read more...]

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Ten ways Israel loves Palestine

March 20, 2012 By 19 Comments

As reported by Mondoweiss and others, two Israeli artists have begun an “Israel loves Iran” social media campaign to show that not every Israeli supports his or her government’s hostile attempts at instigating war with Iran. But while we’re on the topic of love, let’s share some ways Israel loves Palestine. I wonder when the Israelis against war with Iran will become Israelis against the occupation of Palestine.

For more coverage and context, read ‘Israel loves Iran’ message of peace is great, but message of hypocrisy is not.

[Read more...]

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Chicago activists, we’ve been called out

March 12, 2012 By 1 Comment

Administrative note: It’s finals week at the University of Chicago so there will be little activity here on SMP until after I get through these exams. Rest assured, though. SMP will be back on track soon.

Chicago activists, we’ve been called out.

Waiting in my inbox today was an email from a colleague linking me to an opinion piece in The Times of Israel. Written by Michael Kotzin, a Senior Counselor at the Jewish Federation who spends much of his time trying without success to rebrand Israel as a humanitarian state, the article complains that campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are effectively linking Israel to apartheid and calls on Israel’s advocates to counter SJP and other likeminded movements who have the potential “to shape the American mind”.

I took most of the article with a grain of salt. I’ve seen dozens of these opinions try to frame any activism against occupation as an imminent threat to Israel’s existence. At the end of the day, what individuals like Kotzin are telling us is that Israel needs to occupy and oppress Palestinians to survive. Being unable to do so would lead to the destruction of the only beacon of hope in the Middle East. So, they say, put your morals away and keep Israel strong.

As you can see, Katzin’s article is laughable at best. But he’s got one paragraph in there that hits hard, and that’s why I couldn’t take the entire article lightly. Regarding Israeli Apartheid Week, he writes (emphasis mine): [Read more...]

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A block print for Hana Shalabi

March 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Guest contribution by Maureen Murphy

I made this print to honor the call being made by Palestinian human rights groups to stand in solidarity with hunger striking Palestinian political prisoner Hana Shalabi on International Women’s Day. Hana, who is being held by Israel without charge or trial under administrative detention, has been on hunger strike for nearly a month and says she will not end her strike until she is released.

There are seven Palestinian women currently in Israeli detention. Read more about them and the calls for solidarity with women prisoners here: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/international-womens-day-stand-palestinian-women-prisoners

Israel has arrested and detained Palestinians throughout its history in an attempt to break their will and repress their liberation movement. I can think of no better way to mark International Women’s Day than showing solidarity with Palestinian women who have sacrificed the little freedom they have under occupation. We can show solidarity by taking action to put pressure on Israel to release women prisoners, and educating others about their situation, and above all else, working to end US aid to Israel. [Read more...]

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Of Occupation, Resistance and Women

March 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Guest contribution by Roqayah Chamseddine

Despite the establishment of stale orientalist campaigns, created in the name of women’s liberation in the Middle East and North Africa, the existence of enduring, self-sufficient women in the region has far-reaching historical context. The search for female Middle East voices amongst pundits in the mainstream media echoes the same tired “Palestinian Gandhi” aphorism; analysts have long used Laurence of Arabia-esque exoticism as a means to portray the women of the Arab world, in that if they are not subservient housewives they are coy and reserved daughters, sheltered and locked away by the domineering male figures in the household. These conjectures are not false in their entirety, but they are also not subjective as to one specific region, culture, religion or people.

The pervasive Western tradition of characterizing an entire community by certain traits, which their Western audiences can ooh and ahh at, has helped manufacture a plethora of distortions. History confirms that Arab women have long played an active political role in their societies; from Egyptian women who demonstrated alongside men during the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, against British occupation of Egypt and Sudan, to resistance fighter Jamila Bu Hreid of Algeria, who was nearly tortured to death by French occupation forces during the Algerian revolution and independence movement, lasting  from 1954 to 1962, which resulted in Algeria gaining its independence from France. South Lebanon, liberated in 2000 after nearly 22 years of Israeli occupation, was also home to female political action. Lebanese women would quietly supply resistance fighters with ammunition, often times wrapping them across their stomachs before passing through Israeli checkpoints unnoticed. [Read more...]

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UC Irvine students silently overcome another round of StandWithUs propaganda

March 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

University of California, Irvine adds to the round of walkouts! On March 1, StandWithUs sent two Israeli soldiers to UC Irvine’s campus to whitewash Israel’s war crimes during the 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza. A large and diverse group of students attended the event and, with signs and chants taped to their shirts, silently walked out soon after the hasbara program began.

This marked the second walkout by students in California in just one week. Pro-Israel campus groups are appearing both uncreative and helpless as they seek to challenge a growing campus awareness of the Palestinian narrative with propaganda events attempting to justify Israel’s role in occupying and invading Palestinian territory.

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Hat tip to Aminah Galal for bringing my attention to the video.

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SJP UCLA’s walkout takes the national campus awakening one step further

March 5, 2012 By 2 Comments

It’s as if each walkout takes it one step further and no matter how much they prepare for it, Israel’s propagandists just can’t seem to stop what I see as a national campus awakening.

After Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCLA organized a groundbreaking Palestine Awareness Week on campus, Bruins for Israel and StandWithUs responded by inviting two Israeli soldiers, Shai Bernstein and Lital Shemesh, to speak about Israel’s noble role in the invasion of Gaza. Their version of events was, expectedly, a whitewashed smear of reality in which they intentionally disregarded the international law violations and human rights abuses perpetrated by the military brigades the soldiers represented.

At the onset of the event, the soldiers immediately recognized the possibility of a walkout and urged the audience to stay for “dialogue”, a term they dropped three times in less than twenty seconds. Needless to say, the audience mobilized and more than fifty students silently stood up, taped a list of the names of those killed in Israel’s invasion, and walked out. Comprised of SJP members and their allies, the students made their point: any attempt to whitewash injustice will be rejected and then corrected.

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Israel’s ‘Gandhi’ clearly absent from Israel Alliance event at U of New Mexico

February 24, 2012 By 9 Comments
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Thursday evening, pro-Israel audience members physically assaulted students and solidarity activists at an Israel Alliance event hosted at the University of New Mexico. The footage captured by a student attending the StandWithUs-hosted event shows adult men verbally abusing the students before physically swatting at their arms, heads, and chests and, at minute 0:55, throwing them to the ground. The students had just begun “mic checking” Nonie Darwish for her comments in support of Israel’s aggression when the assailants launched their physical tirade at them and forced them from the room.

Although I try to refrain from the overplayed references to Gandhi, I will take the liberty of pitching a question similar to the one tossed around by fundamentalist supporters of Israel every day: Where is Israel’s Gandhi? Clearly, his absence is still extending. The assault on the students at a public event at the University of New Mexico mimics Israel’s regular response to nonviolent activists in Palestine and, just as it isn’t tolerated there, it won’t be tolerated here. [Read more...]

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