What I Learned About Pro-Israel Advocacy at My First Anti-Israel Event
Three observations from a night of radical self-examination
The idea that one should have full knowledge of both sides of any argument in which one is engaged is nothing new. It is known and established that one should always have knowledge of the other; this knowledge helps refine rhetorical strategies, enhancing the level of discourse in general, particularly regarding the respect for the other side that such knowledge engenders. This is a principle I have always believed in strongly; but, two weeks ago, I was presented with the opportunity to not just study the “other side”, but to actually have a chance to engage directly with it.
I consider myself to be a vaguely self-aware advocate for Israel. So I can certainly admit that I do frequently find myself falling victim to the pro-Israel echo chamber. So when I was offered the opportunity to attend an event hosted by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter of the University of Maryland, I saw an opportunity to actually see the ideas of the “other side” in action, presented not just in the context of their eventual refutation, but rather in the context of their actual propagation, as played to the strengths of the ideas as opposed to their weaknesses.
SJP is a national organization of student activists working towards “freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people,” according to their website. Of course, any legitimate advocate for Israel would say that, “freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people,” are the aims of everyone on either side of the argument. And many such advocates might even admit that those Palestinians have, to some degree, “been living without basic rights under illegal Israeli military occupation for decades.” But, deficiencies in the above statement notwithstanding, SJP takes it too far when, in the safety of their own meetings and in public as well, they accuse Israel of being an apartheid state and of committing genocide. These claims are not just wildly incorrect and defamatory; they are downright disrespectful to the real victims of real apartheid and real genocide.
Yet, while these sections of SJP doctrine do deserve lengthy and harsh rebuttal, such discussion is simply besides the point of my attendance at this event. I didn’t give up an hour of my Wednesday night so that I could defend Israel from the same stock arguments with the same stock responses that I have known for years. Instead, I sought to bring those arguments into the real, to critically evaluate the strategic implementation of SJP’s authentic dogma in a genuine setting, and thus learn…something.
So I’d therefore like to share the three critical observations I did eventually make while attending my first SJP event, and the implications these observations have for the state of campus dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
1. The rhetorical strategies are not so different
This was a characteristic of this event that became evident immediately. The first speaker of the night was Aya, a student photographer presenting her collection of photos titled, “The Most Beautiful Prison.” Simple enough. However, she then described her thinking behind this collection, and for the first time of the night, I noted a striking similarity between this event and a pervasive theme that has appeared in a large majority of the pro-Israel events I have attended in my life: an attempt to distinguish the vague concept of Israel or Palestine “as it really is” from the political events which receive a supposedly disproportionate amount of focus. For each side, the motivation behind this tactic is obvious. Humanizing your side of the conflict is obviously extremely beneficial. Sympathy and understanding is more than just a powerful tool for activists; it is the principle source of all mobilization. Of course, humanizing one side usually means demonizing the other. In this case, the corresponding demonization means drawing the worst possible conclusions about an entire society from the most convenient and damning sources available. The demonization at this event was characterized by its basic disregard for the people of Israel; that is, the people of Israel were a single, amorphous entity, only tangible in the suffering of the actually human Palestinians. Although the night was full of stories about Palestinian suffering, every single one of these stories failed to include an actual Israeli. Only, a “soldier”, or a “settler”. But never anyone with a name. Talking about humanization always implies that the humanity of all people should be considered, but that is almost never the case in this context.
Unfortunately, both sides are guilty of this to some degree. Pro-Israel advocates too rarely discuss real Palestinians; instead, the Palestinians are only known through the government organizations which technically represent them, but, in their brutally Machiavellian desire to stay in power, all too often actually exacerbate or ignore the plight of their own people.
Perhaps a shift in thinking would be beneficial for both communities. By humanizing both sides of the conflict, advocates can thus work from a more consistent and less contradictory rhetorical standpoint, avoiding the hypocrisy of requesting that the human side of the conflict be considered, but only for the side of their liking. The human side of the conflict truly does deserve attention, but attempts to stir up sympathy for only a chosen subset of those affected by the conflict delegitimize such efforts.
2. It’s never just about Palestinians
Intersectionality is one of the most important ideas of our times. Whether or not you agree with it, intersectionality is an extremely powerful concept that can have enduring effects all along the spectrum of intellectual discourse, and this event made it clear that the Palestinian cause is no different. During her speech, Aya was sure to mention the Dakota Access Pipeline, and from there, nearly every speaker made an effort to identify a disadvantaged group in society and connect their struggle with that of the Palestinians. Perhaps the most powerful speaker of the night was student Asiana Phan, who performed her spoken word poem, which was originally composed for the “Natives Roots Monologues” the night before. That event was explicitly focused on the struggle of native Americans, but Ms. Phan’s poem was clearly deliberately kept as general as possible so as to allow for the interpretation of a number of intersectional struggles into its message. The poem was marked by its constant use of “us” and “we” and even “our”. Of course, this meant a corresponding “you”. Both sides of this coin remained woefully vague, and I can only imagine the likely charged and divisive notions of “us” and “you” hiding behind those deeply obscured words. The poem was deeply meaningful, and successfully grabbed the attention of the entire room. It was the highlight of the event. And this concerted effort to employ intersectionality as a way to amplify the call for justice in otherwise disconnected struggles has, as evidenced by the crowd at this event, been remarkably successful in recruiting a diverse and multifaceted audience for SJP’s ideas.
Of course, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for pro-Israel advocates to make use of that system of mutual assistance created by intersectionality. Intersectionality has already chosen the Palestinians as the side of the conflict that belongs in the “disadvantaged” column of the global power structure. The ensuing exclusion of mainstream Jewry from that unified movement for equality and justice is well documented.
But, acknowledging that entering the fold of intersectionality may not be possible for the pro-Israel community, broadening the tent and intensifying outreach beyond the scope of that notion of unified struggle certainly can be.
This proposed strategy is different from that of intersectionality, which relies upon a tricky policy of bundling disparate race-based, gender-based, and economic-based plights, thus, in theory, tightening the otherwise wide spectrum of activism. Instead, advocates should base their outreach efforts upon the principle of reciprocity. A reciprocal relationship between pro-Israel advocates and the diverse communities within our larger society has been proven as successful; the tactic has been the hallmark of pro-Israel activism towards American political leadership for decades, and has resulted in a nearly constant stream of support for Israel within all levels of government. This kind of relationship is a point of emphasis for Terps for Israel when working with political figures. But, while that frontier of activism should remain dynamic, the proven strategy of reciprocity should still prove to be effective on campus. Such activism involves the meticulous establishment of a mutually beneficial relationship in which substantive and concrete actions are taken by both sides for the benefit of their partner. Terps for Israel has already taken steps towards implementing such a strategy through a vigorous program of outreach to other campus organizations, and one can only hope that such a strategy becomes more widespread across the pro-Israel world.
3. Assumed crucial key terms often go unspoken (and that means a lot)
Perhaps the most interesting of my observations was a number of omissions rather than anything that was said or shown. Entering the event, I was bracing myself for the brunt of a number of key terms, controversial phrases that can encapsulate multitudes of arguments within just a single word. Discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is overflowing with such key terms, from “settlements” to “occupation” to “Zionist”. While these terms can be helpful in streamlining arguments, they are rarely comprehensive and frequently reductive in their attempts to summarize supremely complex concepts. And, to be clear, each side of this argument has its own set of key terms that it employs on a constant basis.
However, this event challenged my expectations about how SJP might use key terms. Specifically, I couldn’t help but notice the complete absence of two terms that, from my completely abstract preexisting notions about SJP, were vital to their viewpoint: “apartheid” and “genocide”. These two terms were, as I mentioned in my introduction, important cornerstones of the SJP doctrine that I had been imagined, or taught, or both. Instead, they were nowhere to be seen at my first event.
The two terms, as I said before, are incredibly loaded, and, when used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, blatantly incorrect. Yet, inaccuracy notwithstanding, one would expect them to appear in the rhetoric of any SJP member. Instead, this omission, in my analysis, pointed to an important aspect of the organization’s recruitment strategy. To reference Glengarry Glen Ross, SJP’s members subscribe to the strategy of “A-B-C”: always be closing.
Every element of SJP events (or at least the one that I attended) are engineered with selling the cause in mind. Expansion is not a periodic effort; it is constant and unceasing. Any historical reference is fully explained, assuming that anyone in the audience has no prior knowledge of the conflict. And, with the decision to not use words like “apartheid” or “genocide”, SJP avoids turning off those who might not be prepared to accept the use of such labels. An open-minded political moderate who finds themselves at an SJP event or exposed to SJP materials will see not a radical movement prone to making sweeping (and objectively false) allegations, but rather a measured, well-informed one; a cause that can balance emotion and reason.
Of course, this is a deception; SJP really is a fundamentally extreme revisionist organization, one that embraces outright lies and that shamefully pushes an agenda that demonizes Israel (and many times, Jews), ignores Palestinian extremism and the effects it has on Israelis, and that is fundamentally counterproductive towards the ultimate goal of achieving peace and implementing a two-state solution. Years of on-campus experience has taught SJP that the naked promotion of such an agenda is rarely effective, but instead of gleaning from those lessons that they should instead forge a more nuanced and conciliatory doctrine, SJP has instead simply hidden the most extreme parts of its ideology from plain sight. By keeping the reality of its belief system reserved only for the most involved and committed of its members, it can recruit those for its lower levels with a softer and more agreeable rhetoric. If this kind of outreach sounds familiar, it is because it mimics the basic structure of a cult.
But perhaps, in the above criticism, I have revealed the most difficult aspect of the exercise in which I was attempting to engage in. It takes an incredible amount of effort to actually look beyond the plainly flawed content of the message and objectively process the strategies at work behind it. But when such analysis devolves into harsher and more pointed criticism of the fundamental flaws of the other, the effort is in vain. That is because this exercise was not about finding out what was wrong with SJP and thus confirming my own beliefs, but rather to figure out how to apply what I learned about SJP into correcting the toxic ideas which they promote on a regular basis.
In retrospect, I think this process, though difficult, is a crucial mental experience to endure for all who advocate for the Israeli cause, and for the cause of peace. Not just to evaluate the other side, but also for self-evaluation. Movements stall when they become stagnant. Being dynamic will continue to be absolutely imperative for pro-Israel advocacy going forward, and such self-reflection is simply the rational action to take in order to achieve that crucial dynamism.
