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Students for Justice in Palestine Holds Israeli Apartheid Week

On Monday, March 20th, Bi-Co Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) launched Israeli Apartheid Week, with the goal of spreading a message of solidarity with Palestine in its longstanding conflict with Israel.

The club invited two speakers, Professor Sa’ed Atshan of Swarthmore College, and Remi Kanazi, a Brooklyn-based poet and activist, to present during the week. A third event, a screening of the film Omar, which was to be held in Thomas Hall at Bryn Mawr on Monday, was ultimately cancelled.

Rosemary Cohen ’18 was a main organizer of the week’s events. A student at Haverford, Cohen stressed the importance of “recognizing Apartheid in Israel and American financial complicity in that Apartheid.”

“We wanted to give people a chance to place themselves in the conflict while also using the week as a message of solidarity for the Palestinian Rights movement,” said Cohen. “People see this as very distant to their lives.”

Atshan teaches in the Peace and Conflict Studies Department at Swarthmore College. His talk, titled “Human Rights in Occupied Palestine: Reflections from a Queer Palestinian Quaker”, took place on Tuesday, March 21st in Chase Auditorium. Atshan, as a Quaker, largely tackled the issues of human rights in Palestine under Israeli control.

Kanazi’s talk was titled “Poetic Injustice: From Brooklyn to Palestine”, and was held on Wednesday, March 22, in the DC Basement Main Lounge. Kanazi’s work involves touring college campuses and universities, where he performs spoken word poetry and urges student activism on campus. His poems spoke directly to Cohen’s sentiments, ranging from overcoming apathy of Americans to injustice to bombing raids in Palestine. Each event drew a small crowd of 15 to 20 people.

“People that come to events are people who are progressive and radical on these issues, who support this work, and there’s often a presence of people who don’t support this work, but come out to these events anyways,” said Cohen. This issue makes it difficult for this movement to grow beyond the club and into the greater student body. Cohen said that if students are galvanized on a major divestment campaign, she didn’t believe it would be this issue.

Cohen expressed concern over Haverford’s small size as a major hurdle to overcome in the club’s goals. The intimacy of the campus often prevents students from supporting an issue, as Cohen said, “if it means disagreeing with their friends.”

“In our movement, there isn’t really room for dialogue,” said Cohen. “A common complaint is that SJP doesn’t want to have a dialogue, doesn’t want to talk about it. To that I say there’s too much at stake. You can’t walk into a room and separate yourself from this issue and talk as if this doesn’t matter. We can’t put ourselves and peaceful dialogue before a struggle.”

The next major project for SJP will be a Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) campaign against Israel. This movement is currently underway at Bryn Mawr. Cohen stated that financial boycott is working in Israel. Kanazi’s talk also touched on this issue; he informed his audience that colleges often invest in companies that support Israel, and he stated that students have a right to know where their tuition dollars go. and the goal of the club will be to inform the student body of Haverford’s investments in these companies. This undertaking will also include an attempt to remove Sabra Hummus from the Coop and Uncommon Grounds.  Sabra Hummus is headquartered in New York and owned by Strauss Group, an Israeli food manufacturer. 

 

**An earlier edition of this article referred to Sabra Hummus as an Israeli company. Sabra Hummus is headquartered in New York and owned by Strauss Group, an Israeli food manufacturer**

 

 

 

10 Comments

  1. Concerned Alum March 28, 2017

    “In our movement, there isn’t really room for dialogue,” said Cohen. “A common complaint is that SJP doesn’t want to have a dialogue, doesn’t want to talk about it. To that I say there’s too much at stake. You can’t walk into a room and separate yourself from this issue and talk as if this doesn’t matter. We can’t put ourselves and peaceful dialogue before a struggle.”

    This is antiethical to the first line in Haverford’s honor code: “…this goal is only possible if students seek mutual understanding by means of respectful communication.”

    Ms. Cohen should be brought before honor council immediately. This is an offensive and dangerous position which should not be allowed on Haverford’s campus. She openly and routinely admits to violating the honor code.

  2. 5C Member of Team Goat March 28, 2017

    “In our movement, there isn’t really room for dialogue”

    This says so, so much.

    • Anonymous Haverfordian March 28, 2017

      I think this quote tells you everything you need to know. Extraordinarily destructive rhetoric.

  3. StillWithHer March 28, 2017

    As a factual note, Sabra was founded by a resident of Queens, NY, is based in White Plains, NY and Virginia, and is jointly owned by PepsiCo and the Strauss Group. I’m not sure how this makes it an Israeli company? Maybe try fact-checking?

    • Anonymous Haverfordian March 28, 2017

      SJP doesn’t like Sabra because it is jointly owned by the Strauss Group which is Israeli and donates to an elite Israeli military unit. Not very damning in my opinion, but I also don’t view the Israeli military as evil terrorists so I’m not on the same page as SJP.

    • Rebecca Seeley March 28, 2017

      The Strauss group is the largest food product manufacturer in Israel and Sabra donates to the IDF. Maybe try fact-checking?

  4. JewishLivesMatter March 29, 2017

    This is crazy talk! Compare Israel to any other middle eastern country and then realize whom you should divest from….

    • concerned March 30, 2017

      no other middle eastern country is receiving $ 38 billion in *military* aid from the United States and using it to create an apartheid state (stripping Palestinians of basic human rights)

  5. Lisa Kainan April 3, 2017

    The problem with these events is that they deliberately oversimplify the very complex reality of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I am very disappointed to hear that HC students are willing to set aside critical thinking skills when the cause is “trendy”. And what about all the evidence that Hamas encourages its followers to reject peace and glorify violence? I would hope that these are not values that the HC community supports. http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Palestinian-Authority-textbooks-teach-pupils-to-be-expendable-martyrs-485923

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