To the Editors:

On this spring’s referendum is the question, “Should Oberlin College put a block on investments with any companies involved with the Israeli military?”

This question is based on the Students for a Free Palestine campaign for divestment from Israel.

The ideology behind Zionism is that those Jews who want to can have self-determination. Israel has a policy of “right of return;” any Jew may go to Israel and become a citizen. Therefore, any Jew who feels oppressed or discriminated against by their government can move to a country where their government will not discriminate against them because of their religion.

Criticism of Israeli policy is in no way anti-Semitic, just as criticism of the U.S. is not anti-American. However, there is a line between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. The accepted view is that the line is crossed when Israel is held to a double standard, demonized (especially in ways Jews have historically been demonized) or when attempts are made to de-legitimize the very existence of Israel.

The divestment campaign is anti-Semitic “in effect if not intent,” as Harvard’s president Lawrence Summers has called it. I truly believe that the proponents of divestment on this campus have no intent to be anti-Jewish; however, that does not negate the implications of divestment.

Divestment demonizes Israel by portraying Israel as the sole aggressor in the conflict. Divestment holds the Jewish state to a double standard by singling it out as the sole country in the entire world from which
to divest.

Divestment delegitimizes the existence of Israel through its demand that Israel recognize what it terms the “right of return” for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants. This would effectively end Israel as a Jewish democracy because Jews would no longer be a majority in Israel.

If Israel were then to continue as a Jewish state, this would be more like apartheid. At the last Student Senate meeting, three students offered an alternative question that would be more acceptable for the student body.

The questions posed were whether students support the College divesting from countries’ militaries and whether students support the College divesting from countries’ militaries such as Israel, the U.S. and Sudan, among others.

Those who brought forward the divestment campaign to the referendum rejected these proposals. The question on the referendum is not about divestment. The question on the referendum is about divesting from one single country in the entire world: Israel.

I ask each of you when you fill out your referendum to answer no to divestment. Instead, I encourage each of you to individually raise the level of debate on this campus surrounding this contentious and often personal issue.

Have discussions, attend speakers, support a peaceful resolution and create positive dialogue. Instead of embracing anti-Semitic discourse, work toward a meaningful progression towards peace.

–Ezra Temko
College first-year