It’s been a long five days. A question that we should all be asking ourselves, all the time, in everything we do, is ‘Did I do the right thing?’. When I think of all the reasons that have been put to me why not, a sense of desolation threatens. The question of who I am to take a stand on such a sensitive issue is particularly depressing. How many people have to die, and how closely do I have to have analysed the complexities of the reasons, before I stand up and say ‘enough’? Who exactly do I have to be to be in a position to comment when death tolls start mounting? Do the people who want to leave Israel and Palestine alone to face the complexities and sensitivity of their situation really know better about what is and isn’t appropriate for an ordinary person to do, than me and all the others who have taken action on a world issue this week? Is it so much to ask of a prestigious institution that they look beyond their own interests to the complexities, injustices and suffering of the world beyond? It seems to me that silence and inertia are more dangerous than any form of peaceful protest could ever be. The level of indifference to our point of view and our reasons that I have encountered amongst our critics is what frightens me the most. I’ve been a staunch defender of Israel’s actions myself in the past, but I never would have got angry or dismissed anyone who challenged me on that. I would have challenged them right back, whoever they were and however dubious their arguments seemed to me. I struggle to see how we can ever make progress, on any contentious issues, if we distance ourselves from any opposition we face.
When I think of all the blood that has been shed, on both sides, over that tiny piece of land, all I can do is hope that eventually, Israel and Palestine will find some way of sharing it. But it doesn’t seem enough to just hope. To question, seek to inform ourselves but, ultimately, to do whatever it takes to have our voices heard: this does not seem like something that needs any qualifications. Violence and destruction seems reprehensible: abandoning apathy and being politically active in response to it does not. If a period of more open and inclusive dialogue and debate on this issue is opened up by what we’ve done, it will have been worth it. My friends and family in Israel often say that outsiders aren’t in a position to comment. Personally, I think Israel and Palestine are going to need some help resolving this.
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You seem like one of the nice ones. You're in this entirely because you are appalled, like everyone, at the humanitarian cost of the Hamas/Israel conflict.
ReplyDeleteThe big question: does your sheet of demands really serve your aims? Why demand a politically one-sided condemnation of Israel by a politically neutral University? Is that going to help the people on the ground in Gaza?
Personally, I think the best think is to give money quietly to aid charities, and not generate controversy, tension and disruption.
It's up to you.
1. A "one-sided condemnation" is an appropriate response to a one-sided war - that is to say, a massacre by Israel.
ReplyDelete2. This is not a "politically neutral University": it takes a stance each time it awards an honourary degree to a head of government or businessman. It took a position when it created scholarships for South Africans under Apartheid.
3. We don't want just to "give money quietly to aid charities", we want to see Israel prevented from pursuing again its barbaric terrorism against the population of Gaza. Gaza is a humanitarian problem today because of the political decision of world powers to condone and encourage Israel's violent war against the population of Gaza and the continuing blockade and occupation.
Why should we just "give quietly"? Out of deference to whom? Some of us may be poor, and without philanthropic capacity. At the same time the western powers subsidise Israel's military expenditure by the billions of dollars.
All power to the Cambridge Gaza Solidarity occupation!
A "one sided condemnation" implicitly endorsres Hamas. Hamas deliberatly seek to kill civilians. Israel goes out of its way to avoid killing civilians.
ReplyDeleteYour justification for not asking the university to also condemn Hamas is pathetic.
'1. A "one-sided condemnation" is an appropriate response to a one-sided war - that is to say, a massacre by Israel.'
ReplyDeleteWould the operation have been more agreeable to you had Hamas been better armed and able to strike back? I don't understand the logic of 'proportionality' here. Hamas must have known that firing rockets into Israel was going to bring a 'disproportionate' reply, so why do it? The rockets achieve nothing of military significance, they can't make the Israelis *more* likely to lift the blockade, so why fire them unless to provoke war?
'2. This is not a "politically neutral University"'
Yes it is. Do you see it issuing fatuous statements about all the other conflicts in the world?
'3. We don't want just to "give money quietly to aid charities", we want to see Israel prevented from pursuing again its barbaric terrorism against the population of Gaza. Gaza is a humanitarian problem today because of the political decision of world powers to condone and encourage Israel's violent war against the population of Gaza and the continuing blockade and occupation.'
No decent person wants to see innocent people dying, but strip away the emotive language and you are left with one side of a complex situation. (By the way, how does a 'violent war' differ from your common-or-garden war?) Israel is likely to stop targeting Hamas if Hamas stops firing rockets; Hamas is more likely to do that if Israel lifts the blockade; but then Israel is more likely to do that if Hamas, you know, recognizes Israel's right to exist and stops being Hamas.
'Why should we just "give quietly"? Out of deference to whom? Some of us may be poor, and without philanthropic capacity. At the same time the western powers subsidise Israel's military expenditure by the billions of dollars.'
You are getting confused. The US government does give Israel a lot of hardware. I don't the UK does, though we make piddling money from arms sales there (cf. China, Saudi Arabia, Russia). But none of that has anything to do with the university who you want to raise funds for your cause.
of all the institutions you could have chosen to demonstrate against, the UK government, the US government, the Israel government, you chose an educational institution.
ReplyDeleteif your intention is to help the Gazans, then surely your efforts could have been better directed at a political institution. israel and gaza aren't going to stop just because cambridge uni says so and not even if all the universities say so.
I would like the university to help economically-disadvantaged students, and it should. but just because CNN and al-jazeera broadcast the gazans as the flavour of the month, doesn't mean that there aren't other people elsewhere dying, suffering. i suspect the university already has equanimous policies in place, it shouldn't limit its efforts to the palestinians and it shouldn't make a special exception in this case.
and gaza is (read was already) a humanitarian problem because the world powers decided that, oh i don't know, if a government swears unswervingly the destruction of another people, it's not worth seriously negotiating with and definitely not worth given the chance to rearm. it may also not be worth lifting the blockade after it kicks out its elected opposition which is dedicated to peace.
at some point, people choose their own civilians over that of others. condemn the genocide that Hamas says it will do, condemn the killings that Israel it says it does in order to prevent that. fairly, equally, bring them both to the table.
condemning israel alone is going to convince them that you were not there when the rockets fell on their villages. or when every other arab nation was advancing against them. condemning hamas alone will tell them you know nothing of the blockade or the long struggle for freedom or the brutality of the recent attacks.
Name me one respecatable world power that hasn't already condemned Hamas, or Robert Mugabe, or the situation in Darfur?
ReplyDeleteAs a citizen of Israel, if not a practising Jew, it really upsets me the way that all Israel seems to be able to do to deflect criticism is blame terrorist organisations, ask to be condemned alongside dictatorships instead of separately from them, and randomly accuse people of anti-semitism. Dictatorships and terrorists are already being condemned. If Israel wants to disassociate itself from them, perhaps it should stop referring to their actions to justify themselves, and start treating the Palestinians, who used to occupy the land that now constitutes Israel, with the respect and humanity they deserve? If things are bad enough for Israelis to justify imprisoning millions of people inside a tiny patch of land and then bombing it indiscriminately, despite the fact that they know civilians are going to be maimed and killed, I don't see what Israel has to lose from ending the blockade, recognising Palestinian autonomy and democracy, actually offering them enough land to make up a viable contingent state rather than two disparate pieces of land, recognising non-Jewish citizens of Israel as no different from any others, and ending their endorsement of religious settlements. Maybe then they'd be in a position to expect Palestinians to be reasonable, and not get taken in by extremist organisations. It seems to me as if the Israeli government is betraying the best interests of its own people by failing to do all that, and I am protesting in solidarity with them as well as the Palestinians.
As to why we're putting pressure on our university, the silence of academic insitutions is their complicity. Until people stop being so afraid to tell Israel publicly when they go too far, it will never realise that it hasn't got all the power and has to play nice too. Also, the university has control of a lot more resources than we could possibly gather independently of them.
Basically, as students of a world-renowned academic institution, it seems to me we are faced with a choice: look to its power and resources only in so far as they can help us, or demand (Yes, demand. Demanding things and finding ways to give your demands authority does not automatically make you a terrorist.) that they be used to help others as well. Just because this is the form of action that has been taken by conscientious students on this issue, does not mean that they are not actively addressing others: charitable, environmental and political activity should, as far as I can see, be fundamental to student life in Cambridge.
lets make a couple of things clear: I as will many of the other occupiers condemn the killing of the innocent on both sides.
ReplyDeletehowever, I will not condemn Hamas as an institution. this government, my no means the worst or most terroristicly minded government in the world, was elected overwhelmingly by the palistinian people.
I am however a socialist and therfore disagree with hamas on all other levels just as i disagree with the zionist government of isreal.
Here is a clarification for all those at the university who are supposedly so much more intelligent than me, a humble factory worker,: Hamas is not interchangeable with the palestinian people. the targeting of Hamas, though in breach of international law as they are duly elected, does not justify the murder of innocent palestinians.
on the subject of hamas, if they do want to drive isreal "in to the sea" (is that geographically possible from the gaza strip?) how is this distinguishable from the zionist vision of clearing arabs from their land to create an isreali state "The jews are a people without a land and palestine is a land without a people" please read "palestine WILL BE a land without a people"
sorry i just wanted to point out that the zionist founders of isreal were terrosists. Not to excuse hamas but to ensure that people see that both these governments are abhorent.
no war but a class war!
sorry for double posting but as chomsky has pointed out before: by it's own definition the US is the no.1 terrorist state in the world and israel is further up the list than Gaza. this is a war perpetuated by the ruling classes and many religious leaders on both sides. Not by a few rockets being fired in to isreal
ReplyDeleteBeccy: your intentions seem entirely reasonable. Why ally yourself with less reasonable people?
ReplyDeleteI sympathize a lot with guilty-liberal Israelis. You want your country to be the shining liberal democracy it ought to be.
But a lot of people who take an anti-Israeli stance don't do it for your reasons. I don't need to list who these people are. And the movement you have aligned yourself with has refused to even condemn Hamas's actions or criticize its ideology.
Are you sure you're doing good out there?
Lots of us in the protest are very annoyed that the statement didn't also condemn Hamas. But that's the point: if you don't agree with certain aspects of the protest, then fucking well get down there and change it! If you'd been there when we voted on the statement, you could have influenced them for the better. And the more reasonable of us have to ally ourselves with more radical people who take a more one-sided view of the situation because they're the ones who have the fire and passion that means they actually DO something, rather than endlessly debating this or that aspect of this or that. If more reasonable, well-informed, sensible people fought the apathy and got off their arses, as some of us are trying to do, then just think of what a difference we could make.
ReplyDeleteETHEREAL >> Lots of us in the protest are very annoyed that the statement didn't also condemn Hamas. But that's the point: if you don't agree with certain aspects of the protest, then fucking well get down there and change it!
ReplyDeleteAre you willing to pay for my train fare, [1] and accommodation in your fair city? I *am* making my opinions known, you numpty!
SAM WADE >> sorry for double posting but as chomsky [...]
Thank you, and goodnight!
[1] This ain't Oxford, I'll use a comma wherever I please.