In 2007, hundreds of presidents of American universities signed a statement opposing a proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions for their role in Israeli war crimes. The list of signatories is here:

http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/NYTimes_College_Presidents_Full.pdf

In 2008-09, zero American university presidents condemned the incomparably worse Israeli bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza and the headquarters of its faculty association.

Many of us have been desensitized to this kind of vile double standard, but publicly pointing them out can still be a powerful moral action.

If your university’s president was among those who signed the statement, you might like to hold them accountable by making a public statement. I have written the following open letter, which for various strategic reasons, we have decided not to publish on my campus. Feel free to adapt it and use it on your own university campus. Remember to add a salutation and signature.

In 2007, you signed an open letter condemning an effort by British academics to hold Israeli academic institutions accountable for their collusion with the criminal Israeli occupation of Palestine. The academics opted for a selective boycott, which aimed to target culpable institutions while exempting Israeli academics who oppose Israel’s crimes.

Because of your open letter’s patent silliness – it called on the British academics to boycott American colleges and universities for not engaging in discrimination – and because it trivialized opposition to Israel’s severe war crimes as “political disagreements of the moment,” we assumed, along with the rest of the justice community, that you and the other signatories were motivated not by “fundamental values of the academy” such as “intellectual exchange,” as you claimed, but by the cheap, cynical Zionist partisanship that we have come to expect from the American elite.

We are pleased to present you with an opportunity to prove us wrong, by condemning the recent Israeli bombing of Palestinian academic institutions.

Several weeks ago, the Israeli Air Force bombed several academic buildings of the Islamic University of Gaza in six air strikes, including the science laboratory building and the “Ladies’ Building,” where women attend classes. More recently, Israel bombed the headquarters of the University Teachers’ Association.

Media reports on the Israeli bombing of the Islamic University were in near unanimous agreement that the university was targeted because it is a cultural symbol of Hamas. Astute observers have noted that these bombings are consistent with Israel’s policy of scholasticide – the systematic destruction of Palestinian education institutions, including, in the last several weeks, the destruction of at least four schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The Israeli government has made the unsubstantiated claim, disputed by Islamic University officials, that the university was used by Hamas for military purposes. In view of the Israeli government’s history of lying about its wartime actions, its extensive targeting of educational and other civilian institutions, and its refusal to permit independent observers into Gaza to verify its allegations, this claim cannot be taken seriously. The Israeli academic institutions targeted by the British boycott, in contrast, are known to made substantive contributions to Israel’s criminal aggression and occupation.

There can be no doubt that bombing universities and faculty buildings are a more severe form of interference with the “fundamental values of the academy” and with “intellectual exchange” than a nonviolent, targeted boycott, and therefore at least as worthy of condemnation. We invite you to publicly condemn these bombings.

I had been thinking of writing a post about the efficacy of rocket firing.  What Jeff recently wrote hits the nail on the head (emphasis mine):

Apologists include not only those who defend Israeli violence, but those who defend whatever diminutive forces are still launching rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.  This has nothing to with the right of an occupied people to resist – such rocket attacks are not resistance.  The rocket attacks from Gaza have no logical basis.  Engaging in war, engaging in violence, should at the least have a rational basis in the expectation that it will improve one’s situation.  However, it is abundantly clear (and has been for some time) that not only are such attacks not improving the plight of Gazans, but with a grand total of 5 fatalities, while providing a pretext for Israel to respond, are almost completely ineffective while increasingly contributing to the decimation of the civilian population of Gaza.  One might even suggest that those behind the rocket attacks are in collusion with Israeli military planners, so ineffective are such tactics.

Why do they fire rockets?  Why engage in such counterproductive actions?  Its incredibly suspicious.  Its as if, whoever is firing the rockets, wants Israel to escalate.

The rub is that if the Israelis are behind it, the rocket firing is both expected and lauded by Hamas (so it would blend in).  If Hamas is behind it, then how high a civilian cost are they willing to pay to slowly de-legitimize Israel’s statehood?  It would take hiding in civilian homes when firing rockets to a whole new level of vile.  Perhaps Hamas is simply pulling a Bush and hoping a little warfare and a common enemy will bolster their support.

My gut instinct is that what Hamas should be doing is staging massive acts of civil disobedience.  They should be engaging in actions that leave the world with no recourse but to offer support.  Because make no mistake.  With the invasion and the rockets and bombings aside, the Palestinian people are oppressed.  They are oppressed by the Israelis, and by the surrounding nations who are in various degrees complicit in the state of isolation and poverty the Palestinians are boxed into.

By the same token, one might ask of Israel what it stands to gain by invading?  Its costing them their legitimacy:

The original Zionist concept of a collaborative, diverse haven for an oppressed class of people has mutated into an ultra-militaristic state which has violently oppressed the people whose land was taken for that purpose.  No state has an inherent right to exist (did the Soviet Union?  Do countries whose borders have been drawn by occupying forces?), and for many well outside of the Middle East, Israel is losing any legitimacy it may have possessed.

Jeff is absolutely right.  And all the invasion will accomplish (as he notes further down in a post I recommend reading in its entirety) is inciting more reciprocal violence.  Israel should, rather than resorting to violence, shame and deligitimize Hamas for the attacks.  As it stands now, any such efforts would be so concentrated in their hypocrisy they might prove fatal upon observation by rational people.

What do you think?  What should the Palestinians be doing, right now?  What should the Israelis be doing, right now?  What should the US and the UN do?

• The state of Israel has lost its moral standing for its existence.  The original Zionist concept of a collaborative, diverse haven for an oppressed class of people has mutated into an ultra-militaristic state which has violently oppressed the people whose land was taken for that purpose.  No state has an inherent right to exist (did the Soviet Union?  Do countries whose borders have been drawn by occupying forces?), and for many well outside of the Middle East, Israel is losing any legitimacy it may have possessed.
• The perpetrators of this 40 year-long genocide – Israel and the United States – have increasingly backed themselves into a very small corner in the public opinion of the world.  Given the U.S.’ unparalleled economic and military power in the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s, it could afford to overlook the destruction of a small population with little possibility of a threat to its own power.  But economic spheres have and are arising in South America, East Asia, and even Western Europe, and its military force is not as singularly persuasive as it once was.  Empires can crumble, and while the U.S. is currently the only superpower, that can change.  Especially with the whole world against it, minus its client state.

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• We should fear for our lives.  Violence begets violence, and between Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, the U.S. is responsible for more violence now than before the attacks of 9/11.  A future in the United States without some form of violent retaliation is not likely.  However critical one might be of those in the anti-war movement, an implicit aim in every protest and petition is to make the people of this country (and others) safer.  The legacy of our government, on the other hand, is to make us less safe, regardless of the number of times we might have to take off our shoes at the airport or how many Muslims we imprison at Guantanamo.

Why shouldn’t we think that we might be next?  What makes our lives – our children’s lives – less important than that of those children who hear the whirring of planes overhead, followed by the silence of death?  If they can be exterminated, what moral claim to life do we have?

• Apologists for the violence cannot be taken seriously.  At current count, the death toll of Israelis to Palestinians is 5 to 530.  One country is the occupier of the other.  One country has an arsenal greater than any member of NATO (save the U.S.).  One country has a blockade of food and medical supplies of the other.  There is no such thing as parity in this situation.  Any sentence that begins, “Israel has the right to defend itself …” does not merit being finished.  Occupying countries have no rights; they simply have responsibilities.

Apologists include not only those who defend Israeli violence, but those who defend whatever diminutive forces are still launching rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.  This has nothing to with the right of an occupied people to resist – such rocket attacks are not resistance.  The rocket attacks from Gaza have no logical basis.  Engaging in war, engaging in violence, should at the least have a rational basis in the expectation that it will improve one’s situation.  However, it is abundantly clear (and has been for some time) that not only are such attacks not improving the plight of Gazans, but with a grand total of 5 fatalities, while providing a pretext for Israel to respond, are almost completely ineffective while increasingly contributing to the decimation of the civilian population of Gaza.  One might even suggest that those behind the rocket attacks are in collusion with Israeli military planners, so ineffective are such tactics.

For those of us who live in the countries of Israel and the U.S., both alleged democracies, the responsibilities of our governments are that much more heavy.  We are supposed to have a degree of control over the actions of our leaders.  Our “freedom” and “democracy” are touted as admirable and prominent aspects of our countries.  If we do not use our freedom and democracy to bring an end to the homicidal inclinations of our governments, who can fault the acts of revenge on us by the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles of the innocent who have perished?  After all this bloodshed in a world where violence has become the new universal language, who doubts it is coming?

UPDATE (Thursday, January 8): Apparently Avi Shlaim, who wrote in the Guardian on January 7, also came to the same conclusion regarding Israel’s “right to exist”:

This brief review of Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism – the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

This past week was Palestine Awareness Week, when members of Students for Justice in Palestine worked to present facts and viewpoints that run counter to the traditional negative portrayals of Palestinians. As part of the effort, the organization created posters presenting facts about the Israel-Palestine conflict that would surprise most Americans, like facts illustrating the enormous disparities in military strength between the Israeli army and the Palestinian people, and between the magnitude of the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians and those committed by the Palestinians against Israelis.

Unfortunately, some individual or group, presumably unhappy with this factual presentation, has seen fit to sabotage these signs. Although I have never heard of a pro-Palestinian group sabotaging signs put up by Zionist groups, I have more than once encountered vandalism against pro-Palestinian groups, presumably by Zionist individuals. I suggest that this reflects on the fact that Zionists are insecure in their own political position.

Zionism, born during the heyday of colonialism as a colonial movement, has not successfully adjusted to this postcolonial world. The self-serving nationalist myths that used to pass as truths have been systematically debunked, in most cases by Israeli historians, and are no longer taken seriously in respectable circles. The old racialist caricatures of Israelis and Arabs are too embarrassing, too evocative of the historical racism in this country, for educated Americans to entertain. And though Zionists have spent enormous sums of money on advertising and image management, they have not identified a successful message. Just a couple of years ago, Israel was rated the world’s worst brand by the National Brands Index.

If you read the Zionist press, as I often do, you’ll find that discussions about communication are dominated by concern that the Zionist message is not succeeding among young people, and proposals for how better to “sell” Zionism and Israel to the targeted audiences. This is in stark contrast to discussions in the human rights community, which is concerned about how to break through the media and cultural barriers that prevent the Palestinian side of the story from reaching a mass audience. No wonder, then, that when Palestinian groups take steps to communicate its message, Zionists feel like they have to undermine it through acts of destruction.

This letter got me a request to meet with the director of Hillel, which I shall do on Tuesday.

Originally conceived as an opinion piece, it would have noted, as Edward Said noted in “The Question of Palestine”, that in many respects Zionism is a great success – it’s created a state with a strong economy, powerful military, solid educational sector and arts scene, and at least for Jewish citizens a democracy.

And then there are the reasons it’s a failure, even on its own terms. As Eqbal Ahmad has argued, Israel has created a situation where its survival is premised on the perpetual military and political weakness of the Arab states. As a result, Zionists have failed in their goal of creating a secure safe haven for the Jewish people. It’s also a failure in that its desperate clinging to the program of colonization and conquest is causing serious moral deterioration among Israelis, and very bad publicity outside Israel. In the final calculation, Israel may be a net debit for the Jewish people.

Those who are subjected to the Zionist propaganda that permeates Western culture, and don’t have or don’t use the requisite intellectual self-defense, could be forgiven for viewing the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians as analogous to the relationship between the US and black people. This analogy follows from the liberal Zionist script: Israel is a democracy, albeit an imperfect democracy that has a race problem, just like the United States; and just like the United States, things are getting better for Palestinians in Israel.

The analogy is wrong. The status of Palestinians in Israel is more like American blacks in the mid-1860′s, after slavery was ended but before the 14th Amendment guaranteed them equal rights. Palestinians are second-class citizens, subject to all kinds of laws, regulations and practices designed to marginalize and exclude them from political and civil life. Israel is an apartheid state by the standard of the United Nations’ Convention on Apartheid.

The greatest source of political marginalization is something virtually never noticed in the West, even by leftists. It is the fact that only a small fraction of Palestinians are treated as Israeli citizens. We get so used to treating Israel and Palestine as separate entities, that we forget that Palestinians, as the indigenous people of Palestine at the time of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, are entitled to Israeli citizenship. That means all Palestinians – the residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the refugees, as well as those living in Israel. The arbitrary, illegal and systematic denial of Israeli citizenship on a racial basis is the most important instrument of marginalization. (It also makes it clear that Israel is not a democracy – but that’s a subject for another day.)

But even if we only consider Palestinian citizens of Israel, the level of marginalization is extreme. To begin with, Palestinians are legally treated as second class citizens. As documented most extensively by Uri Davis, Israeli Palestinians are subjected to an array of laws and regulations in such areas as eligibility for citizenship, land use, and army service, with the overall effect of giving the benefit of the laws to Jews and not to Palestinians. Most importantly for political marginalization, Israel’s election rules permit the government to disqualify political parties that advocate racial equality from participating in elections.

Israel’s racial supremacy has significant differences from American racial supremacy. For one, Zionists are outnumbered by Palestinians in a way that white Americans are not (yet) outnumbered by minorities, and its policies are therefore more aimed at keeping the minority in political control, while in the US, racial policies, embodied in the police and prison systems, are focused on economic control. (Though restrictive immigration policy is more in line with the kind of demographic warfare that Israel wages.) Another important difference is that the US is committed formally to racial equality, while Israel is formally committed to racial supremacy. That’s why Israel has all kinds of laws on the books that would be immediately ruled unconstitutional in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment if enacted in the US.

There’s one Israeli racial practice that’s not a law but is very important for keeping Palestinians politically marginalized, and that is the cooperation among Jewish political parties to exclude Palestinian individuals and parties from positions of power. There has been some progress recently, with the first appointment of a Palestinian-Israeli, Ghaleb Majadele, to the Israeli cabinet about a year and a half ago. But one other historic practice continues unchanged: Jewish Israeli leaders will not rely on an Arab party to hold the balance of power in forming coalition governments. Israeli leader Tzipi Livni has repeated this practice of late. In other words, Jewish political leaders in Israel would rather suffer political defeat than give Arab parties too much political power. That’s some serious racial supremacy.

In summary, Israel has a ways to go before it is as racially tolerant as the US. I’m calling 2037 as the year that Arab Israelis break through the political barrier in part as an aspirational, rather than a predictive goal. Achieving this goal will not just require a major cultural change among Israeli Zionists towards greater tolerance, it may also require the elimination of some of the legal apparatus that is used to systematically keep the Palestinians politically marginalized.