Students Fight to Save Palestine

To the Editors:

Oberlin College Students for a Free Palestine calls for the end of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; areas that Israel occupied in June 1967. Period. There are a diversity of opinions among the members of SFP that reflect the wide range of ideas within the Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish American, Arab American and other communities. We intensely discuss all manor of issues related to the conflict as individuals but as a group we all agree that an end to the occupation is the most important and necessary first step towards any subsequent and meaningful dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. The United States is intimately linked to the decisions, events, and violence in the Middle East and therefore we believe it’s imperative to have a student group on Oberlin’s campus that calls for an end to the occupation and actively educates the college community about the history of the conflict and it’s current manifestations.
Oberlin College Students for a Free Palestine is a student organization that was largely inactive until last spring when a small group of committed students revived it and began to provide the Oberlin College community with information about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This came in the form of educational pamphlets, teach-ins, informational installations on A-Level in Mudd Library, and a week of education. This week of education brought speakers from several different perspectives on the conflict including Black Voices for Peace, Stop U.S. Aid to Israel Now (SUSTAIN), and Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel. The healthy, spirited, and vibrant debate that came out of these educational initiatives was exactly what we had hoped for and intended.
This year we plan to continue to provide historical context to the escalating violence in Israel/Palestine, further educate interested members of Oberlin College, and demonstrate in the service of ending the occupation.

– Shelley Goldman
College senior