Our purpose on campus must be to convey the truth.
By SHMULEY BOTEACHRabbi Shmuley Boteach(photo credit: Courtesy)The following is an excerpt from The Israel Warrior: Fighting Israel’s Battles in the War of Ideas by Shmuley Boteach. It is reprinted with permission from the publisher.College campuses have become Ground Zero for Israel denial, the campaign to repudiate the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in its homeland, Israel. The time has come for each one of us to stand up and defend Israel, the Jewish people and the universal Jewish values that underpin the Western world.Sadly, the Jewish student body politic has been at times infected by both ignorance and apathy, which has allowed the Israel deniers to defame Israel on campus.Let’s begin with apathy. Many Jewish students have allowed themselves to be convinced that Israel is an occupying power in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, and that there may therefore be some merit to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.What they don’t know is that there never was a Palestinian state on the West Bank to occupy. It was only after 1967 that Palestinians began to assert a claim to the area. True, the oft-cited United Nations Resolution 242 called for the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”The resolution also specified that the withdrawal had to result in “secure and defensible borders” linked to a comprehensive peace settlement. In the interest of peace, Israel has already given up approximately 94% of the territory it captured, including the entire Sinai, all of the Gaza Strip and roughly 40% of the West Bank. Nevertheless, Israelis have not had a moment’s peace as Palestinian terrorism has continued unabated and Palestinian leaders have refused to sign a peace agreement, undermining the principle that Israel can exchange land for peace and security.Even if we were to accept the baseless claim that the West Bank is occupied, the question would arise as to why there is no BDS movement against, say, China, which has been occupying Tibet since 1950, a full 17 years longer than Israel has administered the West Bank.If Palestinian leaders and their supporters really care about the Palestinian people, they would be demonstrating against the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians in Syria, the discrimination against Palestinians living in Lebanon, the denial of citizenship in Arab countries, the expulsion of 250,000 Palestinians from Kuwait and the continued incarceration of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in refugee camps controlled by Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians themselves.There is no BDS campaign directed at the true abusers of Palestinian rights. No, the only country that merits condemnation is the one and only Jewish state, and when Jews are hypocritically singled out for special treatment, we call that antisemitism.This brings us to the question of Jewish apathy regarding the slander and demonization of the State of Israel, and the attempts to destroy it by any means possible. Why don’t more Jewish students stand up to fight these antisemitic BDS resolutions proposed by Israel deniers? We need to produce Campus Warriors – PR black belts trained in improving the public perception of Israel. The purpose of this book is to provide these Warriors with concise, clear, factual and comprehensive information to deter and defeat the Israel deniers.Though Israel deniers continue to attempt to gain ground, the fact is they’ve had only minor successes, mostly the result of making a lot of noise and taking their cause to the heart of the campus.Many times, for example, they build a wall to convey their criticism of Israel’s security fence. They will also stage public die-ins with tens of students pretending to be killed by the IDF or force their peers to set up mock checkpoints.It is time for the Campus Warriors to ramp up their response to SJP and their fellow travelers by putting on their own visible public events – without resorting to the fallacious and immoral arguments and behavior of the other side – to expose them as antisemites and Israel deniers.Here are a few examples: An LGBT die-in that would highlight the brutal fate of gay Palestinian men and women who are shot in the head by Hamas as collaborators.An honor-killing die-in with tens of women lifeless on the streets would effectively demonstrate the fate of Palestinian women living in a patriarchal Islamist society.A Palestinian Apartheid Mound would represent the opposition of Palestinians to visits by Jews to their holiest site on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It could also illustrate Mahmoud Abbas’s promise that no Jews will be allowed to live in a Palestinian state.A Human Shield School where a couple of school desks are put in the middle of a campus with students sitting with missiles beneath them, demonstrating the fate of Palestinian children under Hamas rule.It is possible that some feathers will be ruffled. To which Rabbi Dennis Prager offers this observation: “Those who do not confront evil resent those who do.” And if BDS is not wicked, then the word has no meaning.Students should not be on the defensive; however, they should set a positive agenda by telling the truth about what it means for Jews and Arabs to live in the democratic State of Israel. One example would be to construct a Unity Bench that shows Jewish and Arab judges sitting together on the Israeli Supreme Court.Another idea would be to have an event highlighting Israel innovation and inventions.Focus on amazing medical and technical discoveries that have improved the quality of life of people around the world.Our purpose on campus must be to convey the truth. American teenagers have the luxury of going to college rather than fighting on the front lines with the Israel Defense Forces. It does not seem too much to ask that while they are getting an education and enjoying all the benefits of the campus experience, Jewish students and non-Jewish lovers of the Jewish people and the State of Israel do what they can to nonviolently fight for the survival of the Jewish people and its homeland.
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