Upcoming BDS talk sparks dialogue

As an upcoming conference criticizing Israel approaches, the Penn community has been engaged in multiple discussions about the merits of hosting such a conference on campus.

Several student groups, as well as alumni, have been engaging in activism and discussion in anticipation of the national Boycott, Divest and Sanction Conference that will be hosted by PennBDS in early February.

BDS is a pro-Palestinian movement that aims to use the three-tiered approach outlined in its name to force Israel to comply with what it deems is international law.

On Monday, Martin Luther King Day, students met to discuss the BDS conference. A member of Counseling and Psychological Services who has experience as a mediator served as a third-party moderator at the meeting, according to College junior Sam Greenberg, executive board member of the Jewish student organization J-Street.

“Ideologically, people accused the BDS movement of being divisive, unprofessional, and over-simplistic, but I think a lot of people at the meeting were able to share their support for the movement as being more nuanced and more sophisticated than people originally understood it to be,” said College sophomore Sarah Shihadah, co-president of Penn for Palestine, adding that “it was enriching for a lot of people.”

Matt Berkman, a doctoral student studying political science who is co-organizing the BDS Conference at Penn, also attended the discussion.

“It was productive in that we bridged some of our gaps in some form,” he said, explaining that he expected BDS opponents “to be a lot more hard line than they were. I found what they said very refreshing.”

“We weren’t there as representatives of groups,” Greenberg said. “We were there as people who were interested in learning about how people felt about BDS.”

College sophomore Samara Gordon, the campus relations coordinator of the Penn Israel Public Affairs Committee, has been helping her group highlight their differences in opinion with BDS within the Penn community.

“We don’t think it’s reality that the whole student body supports this cause,” she said. PIPAC plans to use tools such as social media to spread their opinions around campus.

Gordon said the group does not intend on doing anything during the actual conference out of respect for the BDS organizers. “I think that what we do, we’re going to do after the conference at a time where people are curious and we want to give them answers and give our side of the story,” she said.

Penn alumni have also been following the BDS developments. Ira Rosen, a 1988 College graduate, said he was proud to be a Penn alumnus but saddened by the choice the University made in allowing the conference.

“As an alum who interviews [prospective students] on behalf of the University, [the BDS conference] is enough to make me not do it,” Rosen said. “I don’t want to help anybody that doesn’t stand up against hate speech.”

Dov Hoch, 1986 College graduate and president of the alumni group Penn Club of Israel, discussed BDS from his economic perspective.

“If you want to break up Israel economically, everyone from BDS has to stop using computers, because Intel has $5 billion in Israel, and an Intel chip is in everyone’s computer,” he said. “Microsoft has R&D in Israel. Apple just bought a major company in Israel. If they put their convictions there, they should all stop using those products.”

On campus, both sides look forward to the discussion. “We’re on a campus that fosters dialogue,” Gordon said. “We want to use this opportunity to keep talking about Israel, and thinking about Israel and the conflict.”

The BDS conference will be held from Feb. 3-5.

Comments (13)

Campus divestment movements are easily stifled by these “dialogue” sessions.

A little more “dialogue” and Penn BDS will be transformed into “Penn Roundtable for Peace”, and divestment will be postponed for another year or two.

That’s what “dialogue” turns into — a real “die”-a-logue for Palestinians. Gaza keeps starving, and divestment is never heard from again.

I’m thrilled to hear about the PennBDS organization’s passion for discussion and dialog. In the interest of such dialog, I’ve been providing responses to each and every item on their current agenda at my www.pennbds-oy.com site.

And I’m glad to announce that I’ve been able to add a space for members of the PennBDS organization (or anyone they choose) to provide their own response to these critiques, giving them a way to demonstrate to everyone that they are ready to discuss, debate and defend their opinions.

In addition to providing a public place for organizers of the BDS conference, their friends and allies to participate in the debate they have told us over and over that they crave (and are not – as some critics allege – simply interested in a monologue or “debate” that requires everyone to accept their premises in advance), this update will provide them a new outlet for their arguments and ideas, as well as the two-way conversation they have not yet found time to add to their own web site.

Let the dialog begin!

Penn is breaking a lot of its own rules to host the BDS hatefest and is hiding information about it. See http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/20/three-days-of-hate-at-u-penn/
I don’t blame Penn, I mean afterall most of there is all those oil funded grants out there. A little immorality and slander can make millions for Penn.

Is “Gamma” suggesting that the police simply surround the Penn conference site and close it down, in the name of, uh, preventing slanders against the State of Israel?

I’m suggesting that if you wouldn’t invite the KKK to speak and you would invite the American Nazi Party to speak than you shouldn’t invite the BDS people to speak especially when you have to break your own rules to do it. And Mr. Boycotting Apartheid why aren’t you protesting the real apartheid taking place in Muslim countries. Why aren’t you protesting slavery in the Sudan and other Arab countries? Why aren’t you protesting the murder of Christians in Egypt and Iraq? Why are you protesting against a fabricated illusion instead of reality?

I lived in Jerusalem for two years, one in West Jerusalem and one in East Jerusalem. What I saw there is the reason I support the BDS movement. Moreover, I will never forget the statements made to me by a couple of Black South Africans who had lived through Apartheid there. (They were volunteering in West Bank, doing things like walking Palestinian children to school so they wouldn’t be attacked by settlers.) They told me that the Apartheid in Israel was worse than it was in S. Africa. Tell them it’s a “fabricated illusion.” (And, of course, protesting Apartheid in one country doesn’t preclude recognizing injustices in other countries—of course all U.S. presidential candidates don’t have to pledge their loyalty to Egypt, Sudan, or other “Arab” countries.)

That’s funny I was in West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem and I saw Arab and jew mix without a problem. I was also in settlements and it was very clear who attacked who. You don’t hear of Jews sneaking into people’s houses and murdering their babies but you do hear of Muslims doing that google the Fogel family for one recent example. Muslims rejoiced at the murder http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/blogs.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2950:avrech-muslim-joy-in-slaughtering-jews&catid=21:seraphic-secret&Itemid=2950 . Since you bring up black Apartheid I should bring up that Israel air lifted black people from Ethiopia to rescue them from religious apartheid.

Come to think of it there is religious Apartheid in Jerusalem. Jews are barred from the Temple Mount because the Muslims don’t want it defiled by the Jews. In addition Abbas himself said that once he has a state it will be Judenrein

Today, a major Zionist newspaper actually suggested assassinating the President!

Look: http://tinyurl.com/839hud4

It also suggested military attacks on Iran and others.

BDS will stop these assassins before they go any further. Boycott Israel now.

If you look at the URL you posted a bunch of rabbis told the guy who suggested this that he was nuts and he is apologizing. He is rightly concerned that Obama’s policies threaten Israel’s survival but that doesn’t make him any less nuts. If you want to look at assassination plots against Obama where someone actually planned to do it look here http://www.theblaze.com/stories/uzbek-man-indicted-for-threatening-to-assassinate-obama-obtaining-explosives-machine-gun/. Notice the man is Muslim.

Liberating Iran from the radical Mullahs before they nuke the U.S. is a very good idea. They are the 9/11 hijackers to the power of 10 and if they have nukes they’ll use them.

With all due respect Mr. Boycotting Apartheid Guy, if you truly believe you are engaged in a fight with the ultimate evil and that BDS is the best way to win, why aren’t you just getting on with it and doing something? And I don’t mean passing a toothless student council resolution or trying to get hummus removed from the school café, I mean marching your legions down to the campus administration and demanding they divest from the dreaded Zionist entity immediately.

Even if you’re going to continue to be all mouth and no action, couldn’t you or your little PennBDS friends at least generate the courage to defend your positions (by posting replies at my www.pennbds-oy.com site, for example – a place that encourages the debate you are clearly frightened to actually engage in, unless you are declared the victor beforehand)?

Alternatively, you can continue to simply hurl accusations, demand responses and ignore everything anyone says, an effective rhetorical strategy, albeit one my nine-year old does a lot better than you do.

You do not get to dictate how Palestinians will free themselves, or how Penn BDS will support their efforts.

However, it would be nice if Zionist newspapers would stop suggesting the assassination of the President and Iran and Palestine and Lebanon.

I don’t believe I was dictating to you as much as I was asking the simple question of why someone who talks such a big game can’t seem to take any noticeable action (and that even your bombastic demands for action never go past insisting that other people take trivial, symbolic votes on your behalf).

Perhaps the thing that Palestinians need to free themselves of is faith that people like you and your PennBDS friends are ready to do anything on their behalf, other than to gather every two years to pat each other on the back for “victories” that exist only in your imagination.

Oh, and when my nine-year-old does the whole “let-loose-with-a-stream-of-accusations” shtick, he tries to not use the same ones twice. Just a suggestion.

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