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A snapshot from this weekend's Zionist/Palestinian throwdown at Penn
Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (of Israel) conference gets international attention at Penn - but is it just a tempest in a hummus tub?
A snapshot from this weekend's Zionist/Palestinian throwdown at Penn
This weekend, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) — a movement that seeks to apply the same methods that helped abolish apartheid in South Africa to Israeli human rights issues — held its national conference at Unversity of Pennsylvania. It was controversial enough that the location was undisclosed; that petitions were circulated; that the opposition brought in Alan Dershowitz, the pro-Israel Harvard professor, for an anti-DBS talk; and that the keynote speaker, Ali Abunimah, a blogger who maintains the website The Electronic Intifada, reported that a "Zionist filmmaker" infiltrated the conference, posing as a CBC journalist. In short, it was the most action seen in the basement of Meyerson Hall in a while.
There was international attention, since the movement has been pegged as quasi-anti-Semitic. But supporters say it's just about human rights, and any controversy is just a tempest in a hummus tub.
Local speakers and moderators at the conference included Penn professors Amy Kaplan and Heather Love; Susan Landau of Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace; and Lynn Gottlieb, a New York rabbi who founded the Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation. Said Landau, who has led a boycott of Sabra hummus among other initiatives, "DBS is a sensible response for people of faith to Israeli apartheid and injustice." She and others invoked Martin Luther King in their discussions; Gottlieb issued a collective apology. "I feel a responsibility to acknowledge the terrible sins being committed against Palestinians at the hands of Jewish people," she said. "I pray for that time when the occupation ends and we can finally embark on a process of forgiveness." She said that Christians fear speaking out because they're "held hostage by the mainstream Jewish community."
Abunimah, in his keynote, detailed various attacks by settlers in the West Bank on Palestinians and the impact of restrictive citizenship laws on Palestinians living in Israel. But he also complained that students organizers at Penn had been "absolutely vilified for their efforts" and that Jewish speakers had been singled out and accused of "being Nazis," mentioning an opinion column that ran in the Daily Pennsylvanian. He added, "the kind of hateful attacks that were used against us is exactly what we stand against. We were accused of coming here to be hateful.... Exactly the opposite was what has happened."
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