UNM Israel Alliance

editorial by Lynn Provencio

At UNM the from March 8-13, “Another Jewish Voice” (AJV) sponsored the “Jerusalem Dispossed” photo exhibit, which tours internationally. AJV was founded locally by members of the “Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance“, which has been the active anti-Israel voice locally for many years. The exhibit was created by the “Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions” (ICAHD), one of several affiliated left wing anti-Israel groups that work internationally to move public opinion against Israel, by means of exhibits such as this, protests, speakers and tours. The full exhibit, introduction and photo captions are available online.

The UNM Israel Alliance had a table near the “Jerusalem Dispossessed” photography exhibition from Monday through Thursday to provide factual information about Israel and provide an opportunity for dialog. We had many visitors across the political and ideological spectrum, from pro-Israel people who signed up our email list and shouted “Go Israel!” as they passed, to anti-Israel people who came to debate or give us their own flyers. It was encouraging to see how many people came by, inclined to believe what they had heard negative about Israel, yet willing to get more information and look into the issue for themselves.

Going by the arguments against Israel presented by visitors to our table and the arguments I’ve heard in other places, the anti-Israel view is driven by emotions, prejudice, a political agenda and a love of conspiracy theories, and is not well supported or well reasoned.

From our visitors at the table we heard that Jewish Globalist bankers make up a Zionist plot to rule the world, and Zionists aren’t regular Jews, they are European Jews. An elderly couple who were European Jews informed us of this. They pointed us to several books and articles in the same vein. This view of Jews and not Jews and a globalist Jewish conspiracy appears to be gaining popularity in anti-Israel circles, among Jews as much as the rest. This brings up a particular problem for Jews: how to go along and agree with the anti-Jewish crowd that you love when you are a Jew? The answer appears to be akin to developing a disassociated personality. It is not us, it is them! We are real Jews, “they” are not! They are Khazars, or they are Zionists, or they are religious…not us!

This couple also explained that Zionists never paid a penny for any land in Palestine. There are many financial records dating back from the days of the Ottoman Empire until today that show that Jews privately and corporately through the Jewish National Fund, systematically bought back the land in Israel from whoever were the owners at the time. The lands were not taken by force, nor were the sales forced, as the anti-Jewish mufti Haj al Husseini of Jerusalem admitted.

Several people pointed out a genetic study that says most Arabs in the region have pretty much the same genes as Jews. Those little Arab children who make up poetry about forming mountains of Jewish skulls and drinking Jewish blood for the camera and their admiring parents will have to stop now. Now they know they themselves are Jews, and that will change everything. After all, this is Jew against Arab, and now they know they are Jews. Otherwise they will have to eat their brothers, which I believe is forbidden by Islamic law, although other cannibalism is evidently allowed, as we saw in Ramallah.

I was amazed at how obsessed the left wing is with race, and how many times racial theories were floated as reasons for their opinions.

Another woman, a local anti-Israel activist for many years and the sponsor of the exhibit, said that the issue with Israel was nothing but “human rights”, and not a matter of Arab vs. Jew. This goes against what Hamas, Fatah and the PLO claim. She said that Arabs did not want to fight with Jews. If that were the case, they could just stop attacking. She said the Israeli government, the European Jewish ruling elite, was the cause of hostilities, due to their violation of practically everyone’s human rights. Is this a tolerant, peaceful balanced view?

The lady gave me a postcard in Hamas green, calling on the US government to quit supporting apartheid. I assumed she meant the apartheid that makes it dangerous for a Jew to enter an Arab area within Israel without being accompanied by left wing chaperones. It could be the apartheid that puts a death sentence on any Arab who sells property to a Jew, or who appears not to hate Israel. Perhaps the apartheid she referred to was the Islamic apartheid that puts heavy restrictions on Jews and Christians in Arab countries, even visitors, and which has driven out the Jewish population in most cases. But no, she meant the apartheid that gives Arabs full citizenship in Israel, allows 14 Arab members of Knesset, and lets Arabs get state benefits, education and health care, allows for Mosques and free worship, allows Arab media that calls for the end of Israel, and lets them own property and start businesses in Israel, along with Jews.

Next she lapsed into nostalgia about the imagined golden days when there was no strife between Arabs and Jews in Israel, and Jews could go freely into Arab towns and vice versa. Indeed, in the early days it happened that Jews and Arabs were sometimes allies, and there was much more peaceful interaction between Arab and Jew than what we see today. In many cases those Arab allies were killed by the invading Arab armies of 1948 and 1967. Likewise today, an Arab accused of being a “collaborator” generally receives a death sentence or must flee to Israel. When Arab countries allied to attack Israel en masse three times in a generation, it didn’t help Jewish/Arab friendship. When Abu Amar, Abu Jihad, Abu Mazen and all the other Abus moved in with Fatah, the PLO, the PFLP and so on, and began to carry out terrorist attacks in Israel and train children to hate and attack Jews, relations between Arabs and Jews began to suffer. When the Muslim Brotherhood, which has religious and racial hatred as its theme and religious supremacy as its goal came to power in the form of Hamas, it became much worse. This was not addressed by the anti-Israel spokeswoman.

As usual, the spokeswoman said that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. If Israel were genocidal as Arabs and anti-Israel left wingers claim, it could have already accomplished genocide, but it has not even come close. It has not even tried weakly. The Arab population is not decreasing, it is expanding steadily, as it has since Jews first began to move back to Palestine. Genocide does not result in a larger population. In one breath she said that Israel was committing genocide against the Arabs in Gaza. When I pointed out that the population was increasing rather than decreasing, she said scornfully that Israel doesn’t have the ability to commit genocide. You can’t have it both ways.

One young man, evidently in training since a friend stood a ways back observing, came up to the table and after much hesitation said that he was more interested in the “plight of the Palestinians” than Israel, and that Israeli towns were illegal. I asked him on what grounds were they illegal. He said because of international law. I asked him what international law made Jewish towns illegal. He was not able to answer, so he repeated his statement about international law. I explained to him that G8, UN and Arab League desires and proclamations did not constitute international law. UN resolutions, whether General Assembly or Security council, do not have authority to define boundaries, nor to regulate where or when a nation may build towns. Only treaties signed by the participating parties are binding as international law, and nations do not sign international treaties about where they may build towns. Even the International Court of Justice may not legislate these issues, and its decisions are not binding, as in the case of their judgment against Israel’s security fence.

International opinion is not international law, and he has picked up a false slogan and thought it was true. I advised him to look into the all the charters, treaties and resolutions that apply to Israel and learn for himself, rather than repeating what he has been told. He retrieved some fliers from his waiting friend and deposited them on the table, anti-Israel fliers with an emotional message and no substance. Probably he will not research the matter, but will continue to parrot propaganda in order to gain approval from his peers.

Are you a person who cares about truth and justice? Don’t just believe what people tell you. Find out for yourself what is true.

Some have expressed an interest in seeing the video of the pro-Hamas protest that was held in front of the UNM bookstore on Jan. 16, 2009. UNM Israel Alliance members were there holding a small pro-Israel rally in the morning before the pro-Hamas counter protest people arrived, and filmed the events. The large pro-Hamas crowd came from the mosque and over ran us after a brief hesitation.

The pro-Gaza counter-protest was sponsored by the Mosque, the Muslim Student Association, the Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance, and the Stop the War machine. When the pro-Hamas counter protest over ran our position, the police had us retreat from where we had been, because of the potential for violence on the part some of the Palestinian Arabs in the crowd.

The proper and legal move would have been to have made the pro-Hamas people move back away from us, since we were there first by more than an hour. However, this has been the tendency across to the country, to give in to Arab intimidation and take the temporarily easier way out. This has also been the policy in Europe and South America, which have seen the Islamic movement in action for longer than we have, and we see the dangerous results for Jews and other citizens there. The same can be expected in the US, if the same policies are used here as were used there. This is not fear mongering, it is simple logic.

During the long discussion about the outrageous “Three Jerusalem Women” presentation sponsored in part by MEPJA (Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance), and in part by the UNM Humanities department, we not only published the articles and video on the UNMIA website, but the UNM Daily Lobo printed comments about the event.

The first article it published was a protest by Dotan Kennedy, and Israeli student who was present at the event. Then the rabid anti-Israel Lobo regular, Brian Fejer posted his standard anti-Israel statement, something stupid about the “Zionist Regime”. Kennedy made a brief answer to that. In the meantime UNMIA members posted two publishable comments, neither of which was posted on the Daily Lobo. Next it published four glowing accounts of the events, mainly by MEPJA members, and rejected two more comments critical of the event.

The “independent” Daily Lobo’s effort was evidently to make the Israeli student look like a lone and unreasonable dissenter in a flood of loving and approving comments about the publicly sponsored anti-Israel propaganda. At least two other people wrote to voice their protest of this event, but their comments didn’t appear in the Lobo. All but perhaps one of the people who found inspiration in hearing Palestinian sponsored lies were members of MEPJA, who evidently went on a letter writing campaign, which was warmly received by the pro-Palestinian editor of the Lobo, Christopher Sanchez.
When I mistakenly gave the Lobo credit for having printed a dissenting view, Mr. Sanchez wrote to demand that I correct it. Heaven forbid that the UNM Lobo appear to be an honest publication.

Susan Schuurman wrote in her letter:

I’m certain all members of the audience did not agree with all comments made by the speakers. But it’s a stretch to call the dialog I witnessed one-sided and a propaganda. And, in fact, it’s getting a bit tiresome to hear such charges every time Israel’s human rights record is scrutinized.

As voices that protest the propaganda are not allowed to be heard in the UNM news or at UNM sponsored events, exactly how can it be tiresome? The left, for all its crying, is not silenced. However, it is very quick to be the silencer. It was five against one in the Lobo, and Kennedy’s account would probably not have been published either, if his comment had not been seen as an opportunity to be twisted, to try and make Israel and Israelis look bad.

UNMIA published the opposing opinion word for word and then replied publicly. It did not silence the opposing view the way the Lobo, MEPJA and the UNM Humanities departments did.

Why were we willing to publish their view, but they refused to publish ours? Because the anti-Israel people are unable to answer our charges, and so they are obliged to try to silence our voices in order to advance their false agenda.

Here are all of the comments that appeared, in case you would like to see for yourself:

• Dotan Kennedy’s first comment
• Brian Fejer’s standard short anti-Israel outburst : “The apartheid Zionist Regime is its own worst enemy.”
• Dotan Kennedy’s response: “nice generic, uninformed, anti-israel statement. you would have loved this presentation”
• A rhapsodic account of the event from Rita Erikson…

Lori Rudolph, a leader in MEPJA, wrote this warped reply. Millions are deprived of basic rights? They say such things but can’t support the statement. The facts on the ground say differently. Marginalized and rarely heard? These PA and Hamas speakers make regular tours through the US, and are certainly the only voices allowed at UNM, where they are invited several times a year, courtesy of MEPJA and left-wing faculty.

• Katherine Hughes-Fraitek, one of the major movers of ethnic hatred in New Mexico, a founder of MEPJA and the Peace and Justice Alliance, and an organizer of this event wrote this comment
• Finally, we have Another set of MEPJA lies by Susan Schuurman, a MEPJA member, does not even know enough about Israel to recognize that “Dotan” is a man’s name, and it shows in the ignorance of her comments.