Students for a Free Palestine
an article by Angela Saad

Going to a university in which one third of the students are Jewish, it is difficult to lead an organization entitled Students for a Free Palestine. It began last year when I was a freshman. Despite the difficulties, we have been able to educate many students who are uninvolved on the issue. After all, our mission statement is to educate the Wesleyan community about the perspective of the Palestinian people both in and outside Israel with a focus on the struggle for human and civil rights. The Palestinian people are fighting to gain a state and to live autonomously without Israeli interference, and there is much support for their struggle.

As the organization has progressed, we have become involved in many aspects of activism through educational forums, peace dinners, and a mock checkpoint. Because of the mock checkpoint we held outside our campus center to portray the lives of the Palestinian people, it caused many people to become upset. Those students who found our actions offensive formed a reactionary group called Students for Israel. This group consists of mainly freshman with a growing number of upperclassmen. This new addition to the Wesleyan campus has caused the relations between those sympathetic to the Palestinians and the pro-Israeli students to become tense - which is putting it mildly.

It is very difficult when any action that we plan, whether a speaker or form of education, is met by others who come to discredit our perspective, but we continue to welcome everyone to our events and hope to have open communication lines for dialogue.

When we held the checkpoints, we did not deny why checkpoints were in existence - to stop terrorism - but it obviously hasn't worked. Instead they are hurting many people by cutting off access to hospitals, schools, jobs and many needs.

Regardless of the influence from Students for Israel, we have continued to work and provide the space for students to become aware of the situation in the Middle East. We hope to educate specifically on the Palestine/Israel issue with the hope of promoting people to be aware and willing to critique something regardless of their loyalties. As a professor at Wesleyan here said, for Israel to be free, Palestine needs to be free.

DISCUSSION

Question(s) related to this article:

Presenting the Palestinian Side of the Conflict
Does this promote a culture of peace?

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MIDEAST PEACE

LATEST READER COMMENT:

I had heard from my friends at the Wesleyan meeting that the Renart letter was a false description, so I was pleased to see this confirmed in today's Hartford Courant (available online to members) the following response from Wesleyan President Doug Bennet.

As Bennet says, the truth is that "people with widely varying points of view were present, and that the discussion itself was both civil and inclusive."

`No Room For Bigotry'

Jann Renert's Feb. 19 letter ["Speak Against Anti-Semitism"] falsely characterizes an event that took place at Wesleyan University on Feb. 7. Moreover, I spoke out unequivocally against bigotry, and particularly anti-Semitism, in a letter to all Wesleyan students, faculty and staff on Feb. 6. I wrote:

"Some students and faculty have expressed fear that the conference will engender anti-Semitism and challenges to Israel's right to exist, and perpetuate and legitimize ignorant and hateful sentiment that could turn Wesleyan University into an unsafe space for certain ideas and identities.. . ...more.

This report was posted on April 18, 2002. The moderator is Ken.

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