The College Fix

The group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has recently held several “educational opportunities” at a few universities across the country.

At Northwestern, the group held its second “Palestine 101 teach-in” event to discuss the “history” of the nation (not state).

Students Omar Shanti and Marcel Hanna “explained” Palestine’s “historic origins and the gradual chipping away of its statehood that culminated with the Israeli occupation that began in 1967.”

Except, of course, Palestine never was a sovereign state, and certainly the dissolution of the possibility of such was dealt a serious blow long before the 1967 Israeli occupation. (See: 1948 and who really nabbed Palestinian land.) Not to mention, why exactly was there an occupation in 1967? Where’s the context? Six Day War, anyone?

At Cal State-Fullerton, the SJP “erected a 10-foot high wall” which emulates the “Palestinian Mock Apartheid Wall” at UC Riverside, which was put up by that school’s SJP in 2007.

“What the wall does over there (is) separates Palestinian territories from other Palestinian territories, making life on Palestinians extremely hard,” said Noor Salameh, CSUF SPJ president.

Salameh added, “The primary goal of the Palestinian Mock Apartheid Wall is to educate students and encourage them to be informed before forming opinions on issues.”

Indeed. Unlike the actual apartheid in South Africa which separated that country’s population merely because of skin color, Israel has taken literal life and death security measures due to the genocidal desire of nations surrounding it.

Not to mention, someone might want to ask Ms. Salameh how many Jews live in Arab countries today. And then maybe she can enlighten us as to how their living situations are.

At least Salameh asked people to “make a judgment for yourself, because history and the facts will speak for itself” … though it’s plain her version of the history and facts is quite skewed.

Lastly, at Cornell, SJP invited poet Remi Kanazi to deliver a performance, the “third stop on his university tour in promotion of his recently published book Before the Next Bomb Drops.”

The Cornell Review notes that Kanazi’s bit “was nothing more than a collection of angry rants against Israel and the United States.” Before he began with the poetry, he “complained about growing up in a mostly white town and said it was a ‘weird fucking experience,’ without citing any sort of discrimination.”

In his act, Kanazi claimed that Israel is a “racist, exclusivist, supremacist state.”

To which The Review retorts:

Israel’s Declaration of Independence made it clear that all citizens would have equal social and political rights regardless of religion, race, or sex. This holds true to the present day. Approximately 21% of Israeli citizens are Arabs who have the right to vote and hold public office.

Kanazi also claimed that Israel has over 500 checkpoints in the West Bank. The truth is that there is [sic] only 13 Israeli checkpoints, as noted by in the IDF Blog. Kamazi also claimed that these checkpoints were a form of oppression against Palestinians. In reality, Israeli checkpoints as well as Israel’s security fence along the West Bank only serve as an effective counter-terrorism measure.

I’d add what should be asked of Noor Salameh from above: How many Jews currently reside in Muslim nations? How are they treated? How have they been treated since 1948, in particular?

Read the full articles by:
North by Northwestern
The Daily Titan
The Cornell Review

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