On Thursday, November 10, 2011, students and community members staged simultaneous walkouts at two prominent Chicago universities as part of a concerted effort to undermine propagandist attempts to normalize the occupation of Palestine and the systematic violation of human rights law.
At Northwestern University, roughly one third of the audience silently walked out soon after Gil Hoffman, chief political analyst for the Jerusalem Post and an Israeli reserve soldier, began a presentation on “63 Reasons to Like Israel”. One week after students walked out of Hoffman’s speaking engagement at Wayne State University in Detroit, organizers capitalized on the momentum to remind Hoffman and the event’s sponsors that the reality of oppression, apartheid, and humanitarian abuse cannot be ignored.
In response to the walkout, Hoffman generically asserted that the walkout served only to “delegitimize Israel” but still failed to acknowledge any aspect of Israel’s illegal activity, including settlement building and adamant rejection of refugee rights.
At the same time, students and community members gathered at DePaul University to strategically disrupt a StandWithUs-sponsored event designed to paint Israel as socially-responsible and its policies towards Palestinians as compliant with international law. The group began by “fact checking” the panel — a tactic popularized by the growing Occupy movement in which the crowd repeats statements or facts announced by the group’s leader, thus amplifying the message (see video directly below). The demonstration was followed by a walkout and an outdoor teach-in and debriefing.
By the end of the evening, Chicago activists, students, and concerned community members effectively shut down two events that sought to whitewash Israel’s discriminatory policies towards the indigenous population of Palestine as necessary components for democracy and peace. For the second time in a matter of days, Hoffman was forced to face the facts he selectively chooses to ignore, and pro-Israel organizations must now deal with the reality that state-sponsored propaganda has no room on America’s college campuses. [Read more...]
Sabra alternative: Inching towards social responsibility at DePaul University
One year ago, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at DePaul University launched a campaign to remove Sabra Hummus from campus shelves after confirming that Sabra’s parent company, the Strauss Group, provides material and financial aid to the Israeli military. Although a vote by the student body overwhelmingly supported the divestment campaign, the university’s administration ultimately chose to continue selling the product. Earlier this school year, however, the university introduced an alternative hummus brand that appears to imply that DePaul is in fact inching towards socially-responsible investment.
Recapping the campaign
Students with SJP at DePaul identify the introduction of this product as a sign of victory for the year-long campaign. It all began when students found evidence of Sabra’s ties to the Givati and Golani Brigades, two elite Israeli military units cited by various human rights organizations for their flagrant violations of human rights law. After establishing Sabra’s complicity in the illegal occupation of Palestine, students called on the campus administration to remove the product completely.
Initially, the administration obliged but, after receiving pressure from community and lobby groups, chose to forego its Vincentian values and reinstate the product. The case was reviewed by DePaul’s Fair Business Practices Committee, and the Student Government approved it for a campus-wide vote.
Of the 1,467 votes cast during the election, nearly 80% were in favor of total divestment from Sabra. Despite this large margin of victory, the voter turnout did not reach the required 1,500 students so the results were considered invalid. Nevertheless, months after SJP presented its proposal for the first time, the campus administration quietly obliged to SJP’s requests and introduced an alternative hummus product for the student body. [Read more...]