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A "Quiet Triumph" for Israel Activists at UC Berkeley |
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By Toby W. Frankenstein, Hillel, May 1, 2006
On Monday, April 10, the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of California, Berkeley held their annual rally to promote solidarity with the Palestinian people and to call upon Israel to retreat from "all of occupied Palestine" (a synonym for the destruction of Israel). Jewish and pro-Israel organizations used this opportunity to call on Jewish students and professionals to do more to combat anti-Israel sentiment on campus. Our own community organizations proclaimed that university campuses remain hostile and frightening places for Jewish and pro-Israel students.
While the protest was a display of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric, the pro-Israel community must understand that these sorts of events are not the norm. It is the pro-Israel students, in fact, who are winning the battle on campus against Israel's detractors. Our success, though, even at a place such as UC Berkeley, will continue to be a quiet triumph.
First, the rally represented SJP's continuing demise on campus. Last year, the SJP rally attracted roughly 70 students – one of the higher estimates. This year, Palestinian activists combined their rally with that of another campus group mobilizing against the bill before Congress regarding immigration. An attempt was made to link the Palestinian cause with that of immigrants in the United States, calling both issues "the cause of indigenous people." The average Berkeley student was not convinced. Instead, most who witnessed the protest were confused, thinking that this was nothing more than a few organizers' Marxist fantasies of the workers of the world uniting. It should also be noted that the vast majority of protesters were high school students waving a wide range of flags from various Central and North American countries.
The protest did demonstrate that Israel continues to have detractors who work to mobilize the community, albeit poorly. But UC Berkeley will always have these individuals. The pro-Israel community's mark of success must not be the disappearance of such activity – such a goal is nothing more than fantasy. Rather, we must measure success by the work that we accomplish in the community that communicates a strong, positive and comprehensive view of Israel.
While SJP members were yelling into the microphones on campus, AIPAC-trained students were arranging lobbying appointments with local Bay Area congressmen. While SJP was selling anti-Israel bumper stickers on Telegraph Avenue, Hillel continues to provide a wide spectrum of social, religious and secular tools for students to help promote and celebrate Israel. When the SJP students marched to the chancellor's office to demand UC divestment from Israel last week, pro-Israel students calmly and convincingly continued to sit down with campus leaders, newspaper editors, professors and fellow students to explain why they, too, should support Israel.
Despite the coverage of the protest, pro-Israel students are winning the battle for Israel at UC Berkeley and on campuses around this country. This does not mean that anti-Israel sentiment has completely disappeared or that Israel's detractors have given up. Our work to promote a safe Israel and a strong U.S.-Israel alliance will never be finished, particularly at a place like Berkeley. But I and countless other Berkeley students take pride in the quiet, effective and convincing work that we do to ensure that Israel will never stand alone.
Toby W. Frankenstein is a senior at the University of California, Berkeley who is active in Berkeley Hillel and the campus AIPAC chapter.
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