Palestine Situation is Not a Simple One

To the Editors:

I am writing this letter in response to the letter written last week by Natasha Uspensky titled: “Anti-Semitic Feelings Abound at ‘Progressive’ College.”

What frustrated me most about reading this letter was the fact that the author saw fit to place a judgement entirely from looking at the posters advertising an event that I doubt she even attended. She claims the posters were a “clear example” of anti-semitism because of the background photo of Palestinian hands reaching through the bars of an Israeli prison. I am interested in the author’s opinion of what would be a more constructive image. A Palestinian teenager shaking hands with an Israeli soldier? The image isn’t positive because the situation is not yet positive. Protest the circumstances that make this image a reality, not the image itself.

In his speech on Wednesday entitled “Palestine-Israel: Is there a way forward?” Josh Rueben spoke as a Jewish-American man seeking to counter the views that any criticism of Israel is fundamentally anti-Semitic. He condemned the assumption that to be Jewish and to criticize Israel makes you a “Self-hating Jew.” To emphasize this point he quoted Gandhi: “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” Rueben added that attacking Israel’s existence was counter-productive to a peaceful resolution between the two nations. That is what SFP’s week of education was about: ending the occupation of Palestine and achieving a livable and lasting peace in the area. It was not about attacking Jews.

It saddens me to see the same myths passed around again and again adding only to the confusion surrounding this crisis. Palestine wants peace. More specifically they want the possibility for a peaceful existence accompanied by self-defined sovereignty. But the only peace that Israel is willing to grant them is one in keeping with the current and historically oppressive and unequal power structure. Then to go on and blame Palestinian authorities for not stopping suicide bombings and preventing peace is absolutely ludicrous. Palestine has never been a sovereign state, and has never had official power over more than 17.2 percent of the Israeli occupied West Bank land. For the past 18 months Israel has attacked all forms of Palestinian authority. Israel attacks police stations, prisons, intelligence offices, murders security officials and then blames Palestine for the ensuing lack of order.

Suicide bombings conducted by Palestinians are reprehensible and indefensible. They do more to hurt people than help them. Not only do they kill innocent Israelis but they lead Israel to justify attacking innocent Palestinians. But in the same vein we cannot allow Israel to justify its occupation of Palestine and its war crimes by associating Palestinian suicide bombers with the entire population. In addition, neither the PLO nor the IDF has the power to stop these suicide bombings. As long as Palestine remains under the oppressive and violent occupation of Israel, suicide bombers will not stop or disappear. Israel needs to focus on ending its occupation and establishing peace between itself and Palestine instead of persecuting an entire population for the actions of a few.

Finally, Israel’s claim that they are fighting a war on terrorism is about as defensible as the U.S. saying the same. What neither country will ever confess is that you cannot fight the symptoms and ignore the disease. As long as you oppress another people, keep them from being free, from living their lives the way that they need to live them, you will have retaliation. It is sickening to hear the U.S. or Israel label resistance as terrorism without bringing into question their own actions. This past week was not an attack on Jews here or in Israel, it was an attack against injustice. And just as Natasha begs the reader to examine the facts of the situation I beg you, the reader, to research this crisis. Not just by reading the front page of the New York Times, but by going online and finding facts that western media ignores again and again. Palestinians are people just like us, who want to be able to live freely in their own country. Calling for their freedom is not antisemitic, it is the only avenue to peace between Palestine and Israel.

–Yussef Cole
College first-year