Nathaniel Solley/Staff

The campus Jewish Student Union voted Wednesday to deny membership to J Street U at Berkeley, a Jewish student political advocacy group on campus whose application to join the union also was denied two years ago after the group faced accusations of being anti-Israel.

The bylaws of the Jewish Student Union, an umbrella organization for Jewish student groups on campus, stipulate that a member organization must not host speakers who demonize Israel, said Jewish Student Union President Daphna Torbati.

That requirement was a point of contention surrounding J Street U, which advocates a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Much of the disagreement focused on J Street U’s relationship with Breaking the Silence, an Israeli military veterans’ organization that criticizes Israel’s military operations in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, said Elon Rov, a co-chair of J Street U.

“We are not afraid, as American Jews, to address those (difficult issues),” said Shayna Howitt, J Street U’s national communications co-chair. “We are not afraid … to host people who we might disagree with. We’re not afraid to stand up and question how we can best support Israel, because we’re committed to the safety of Israel.”

Breaking the Silence, however, has garnered serious criticism from other Jewish groups that belong to the Jewish Student Union. Torbati said she was concerned the group unfairly disparages Israeli soldiers.

Jewish Student Union members Avi Hecht and David Eliahu said Jewish students with connections to Israel would be alienated if J Street U were allowed to host Breaking the Silence under the Jewish Student Union umbrella.

“For a lot of members … the (Jewish Student Union is) the only place where they can express their love for Israel because of such an anti-Israel campus climate,” Torbati said. “A lot of people have said that they want the (Jewish Student Union) to stay a place they feel comfortable saying they love Israel.”

Hecht added that Breaking the Silence does not offer a fair picture of Israel’s military operations.

“Regardless of J Street’s intents, the effect of bringing a public event like BTS is detrimental to the image of Israel on our campus,” Eliahu said.

J Street U invited Breaking the Silence to campus in fall 2012, and its founder, Yehuda Shaul, will appear on campus again in November.

J Street U last applied to the Jewish Student Union in November 2011 but was rejected for inviting a co-founder of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement to campus in spring 2010, among other reasons.

Members of J Street U said they believed their relationship with the Jewish Student Union had improved after working with the campus Jewish community against the ASUC Senate’s contentious divestment bill last spring.

“We did want and expect that the Jewish community was finally going to legitimize our voice,” Rov said. “But we were disappointed.”

J Street U needed eight votes from the union board and its member organizations to be admitted but received only two, with eight votes against it and two abstentions, Torbati said.

Howitt said that J Street U is not anti-Israel but that it is critical of Israel’s policies in the disputed territories.

“The best way to support Israel is not by refusing to talk about the politics that are often uncomfortable and scary — it’s by addressing those politics,” Howitt said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, a petition circulated online by J Street U calling for the Jewish community to be more inclusive had collected 166 signatures, including those of Jewish ASUC Senators Grant Fineman and Liza Raffi, according to Rov.

“We’re not appealing the decision,” Rov said. “We want to prove to the wider Jewish community that the decision does not reflect the vision of Jewish students … We think this decision is inconsistent with what Jewish students actually want.”

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org

Clarification(s):
A previous version of this article implied that a number of students at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Jewish Student Union walked out in response to J Street U’s failure to secure membership. In fact, the vote on J Street U was the last item on the meeting’s agenda, so students left the room at the meeting’s natural conclusion.

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This development marks a welcome departure from the conclusions reached by the UC Office of the President’s controversial Council on on Campus Climate, Culture & Inclusion. The findings from that July 2012 report contended pro-Israel Jewish students were routinely maligned and singled out by anti-Israel sentiment on UC campuses and urged the university to adopt stricter guidelines on combating perceived incidences of anti-Semitism.

The department’s ruling that the campus does not foster an anti-Semitic environment is positive for a few reasons. First, it’s always encouraging to hear that Jewish students won’t be harassed or intimidated because of their identity. Second, this provides an opportunity to reevaluate and strengthen the efforts made to build as inclusive a campus community as possible for students of all backgrounds.

And after a five-year period that included two divestment bills, multiple “Israel Apartheid Weeks” and “Israel Peace and Diversity Weeks,” a universitywide “campus climate report” and a bill passed by the California State Legislature that targeted pro-divestment campus activists, the Department of Education’s decision could mark a new era for the campus community. This means it’s important that the university double down on its efforts to maintain a healthy climate for Jewish students and their Muslim counterparts.

It’s also important to credit the role of groups like the dialogue-focused Olive Tree Initiative, which has provided a critical safe space for students from different communities to engage on what are difficult and emotionally wrought issues. The campus should look to develop more of these programs, perhaps reviving former ASUC president Noah Stern’s “Bears Breaking Bread” group dinners, which sought to carve out more safe spaces of discussion for students of traditionally opposed student communities.

In spite of the passage of SB 160, a bill calling for UC funds to be divested from companies complicit in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, last semester the campus appears to have reached a calm for the time being. It’s now up to the campus and student leaders to ensure it stays like this.

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The chancellor’s concern about the “rancor and divisiveness” caused by the divestment vote (Daily Cal, April 18) reveals little sensitivity to the role of the university as a forum for discussing and debating controversial issues. The univeresity has a proud tradition of hosting such debates but often in conflict with the administration. It was here at Cal in 1964 that civil rights activists sought to fundraise and recruit students for civil rights work in the South by setting up in tables in Sproul Plaza, activity later generations of student activists have taken for granted. But in 1964, this tabling activity was banned by chancellor’s office, citing university regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes at Cal other than for the Democratic or Republican parties.  This effort by to muzzle Free Speech led to the famous sit-in at Sproul Hall in 1964, the arrests of hundreds of UC students and the birth of the Free Speech Movement.
Later that decade, Cal students, often at great personal cost, protested the war in Vietnam, seeking to end campus ROTC. In the following years, Cal students protested apartheid in South Africa, other causes and more recently, Berkeley Law professor John Yoo’s key role in justifying the use of torture in Iraq.

In the course of all these protest activities, always the administration has complained, just as the chancellor has done in relation to the divestment debate, that these issues were “divisive,” that activists were disrupting the peaceful, “civil” atmosphere they say fosters learning and the educational mission of the university.  Indeed, all of these protest movements were vigorously opposed by other students and faculty who complained that the protesters threatened something the UC administration now refers to as the “campus climate.” But what the chancellor forgets, in echoing the complaints of those who took offense at the “divisiveness” caused by the FSM, Vietnam War protests and now, the divestment debate, is that advocacy for social change almost always is somewhat “divisive”  and inevitably offends those resisting change. The university is not well served by what author Christina Hoff-Sommers describes as the growing “tyranny of niceness” at U.S. universities.

The UC administration also does a disservice to campus community when it weighs in on this debate by describing the divestment vote as “not a positive force for (the) campus climate” or “rais(ing) passions without moving the issues perceptibly forward.” (Daily Cal, April 24). Without question, the controversy on all UC campuses over divestment and Israel-Palestine stirs strong passions on both sides. But that passion should inspire, not stifle, debate and discussion here at the university over the serial wars in the Middle East, the failures of U.S. foreign policy there and the dire consequences especially for Palestinians.
Equally unavailing is the chancellor’s complaint that criticism of Israel is one-sided and the not so-veiled accusation underlying this complaint that this “one-sidedness” reflects anti-Semitism. Even the insinuation of that charge raises rather than dampens, the “temperature” on the campus relative to these issues. Understandably, those opposing Apartheid in South Africa spent most of their energies seeking change there and not elsewhere. And one can oppose North Korea without “balancing” one’s views with criticism of South Korea.

To be clear, many of the students protesting Israeli policies are sharply critical of the anti-democratic policies of Israel’s Arab neighbors – hence the near-universal celebration of the Arab Spring within the pro-divestment community. But there is no “equal criticism” burden on the exercise of First Amendment rights. And it is entirely understandable why pro-divestment students focus on Israel: This conflict threatens world peace and drains enormous resources. But more fundamentally and from a moral perspective, support for Israel perpetuates the displacement of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the 1948 war, in clear contravention of international laws, and abides the continued and often very brutal occupation of the territories seized in 1967.

A few years ago, Chancellor Birgeneau climbed on top of a police car on Sproul Plaza to honor the legacy of Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement. If the chancellor really respects UC Berkeley’s historic role as a forum for debate, he should encourage, not stand in the way of, vigorous advocacy for human rights and equality as exemplified by the divestment campaign, even if it upsets some members of the UC community.

Jewish Voices for Peace member Liz Jackson contributed to this op-ed.

Matt Ross is a UC Berkeley alum. Maggie Sager and Nathan Stuckey are members of Students for Justice in Palestine.

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Editor’s note: Noah Kulwin is a member of J Street U at UC Berkeley.

As word broke yesterday that ASUC President Connor Landgraf would not veto SB 160,  the divestment bill targeting companies involved in Israeli human rights violations, which passed in the ASUC last week, I was not sure how to respond.

On the one hand, it means divestment passed – an end with which I am not pleased. At last Wednesday’s senate meeting, I spoke against the divestment bill and criticized how it did not consider the inextricable link between Jewish and Palestinian self-determination. Nor did the bill propose a strategy of political engagement with which to advance American diplomatic leadership in the region.

But on the other hand, I am sort of relieved. There will be no more all-night Senate meetings, no more claims of pro-Israel lobbies buying off ASUC senators and, thankfully, an end to the repeated claims of many of my peers in Berkeley’s Jewish community that this bill’s very nature “silences” the Jewish community on campus.

Berkeley’s Jewish students are blessed with tremendous resources, including many that came to bear fully in opposition to divestment.  Whether it was coming together in our multi-million dollar Hillel building to voice our complaints, or strategize with professional support staff and Jewish ASUC Senators to provide a legislative alternative to divestment – Jewish students have had ample space in which to voice their frustrations and feel supported.

I don’t doubt that some Jewish students do indeed feel marginalized. I do, however, wonder if they are aware of how much damage these accusations of “marginalization” do to our community when we frame our own claims as mutually exclusive to those of Palestinian students and their allies.

Is a senate chamber divided between “students of color” and “Jewish students” the kind of portrait of campus engagement that we want to symbolize our community? Is it possible that the privilege of the established Jewish community at Berkeley has blinded them to these harmful dynamics?

This self-awareness is absent from the discussion in the recent Daily Cal op-ed written by ASUC leaders Natalie Gavello and Oren Friedman. According to their version of events, divestment supporters “had the opportunity to take a progressive and innovative approach to this issue but instead renewed feelings of alienation and discomfort reminiscent of 2010.”

Let me backtrack– I applaud Gavello and Friedman’s support for a two-state solution in their piece, and attempt not to “detract from the Palestinian suffering.” Sadly, the authors still have a long way to go.

First, I don’t know what an “innovative approach” to this issue looks like, or why the authors felt they should be involved in how to handle divestment. Most vocal leaders of the Jewish community have unfortunately never before indicated that they care to make change on this issue (except when they are trying to defeat divestment). This has become evident as almost none of these leaders, including Friedman and Gavello, returned to advocate for SB 158, the pro-Israel bill they were championing the week before.

Moreover, if Israel love-a-thons like “Israel, Peace and Diversity Week” with a giant, spinning Star of David in the middle of Sproul Plaza are the best our community has to offer in terms of “innovative” campus engagement with this issue, then no wonder many don’t consider us partners for change.

Friedman and Gavello are correct that divestment “renewed feelings of alienation and discomfort” – the problem is that it goes both ways. For every Jewish student complaining of their “marginalization” on this campus, there is a pro-divestment student with a similar claim that divestment supporters are being painted unfairly as anti-Semitic and that members of our community are trying to whitewash their oppression.

This also perpetuates alienation within the Jewish community. It is a sad day when my fellow opponents to divestment attempt to create this illusion that the Jewish community is united on this issue by smearing Jews who support divestment as somehow less relevant and, implicitly, less legitimately Jewish.

I remember when I, sitting in the “Jewish” section during the senate meeting, heard my peers snicker when Palestinian students told stories of their families’ suffering. And while I too am frustrated by cheers of a Palestine from the “river to the sea,” I was also stunned hearing some in the Jewish community condemn a peaceful student protest in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers as a “hate rally.”

I have heard many in the Jewish community cite what Israeli politician Natan Sharansky calls “the three D’s” that distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism: demonization, delegitimization, and double standards. It is with a deep sense of irony that I realize one could apply those same criteria to my community’s behavior this week.

Palestinian students and divestment supporters are “demonized,” slurred as bad people, for pursuing non-violent political actions in our student government. And they also are “delegitimized,” as many in the Jewish community simply dismiss the real tragedies of occupation as being mistruths or mischaracterizations. And Jewish students treat divestment supporters with a “double standard,” content with the other side feeling silenced or marginalized if it in any way threatens our own comfort on campus.

If the Berkeley Jewish student community wants to be fair-minded and inclusive, I fully support that goal and will work aggressively toward that end. That being said, as long as venomous discourse and acts of exclusion typify how we, as a community, respond to acts like divestment – nothing will change, nothing will get better.

Celebrated American Rabbi Joachim Prinz, speaking right before Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the famous 1963 March on Washington, urged that “America must not become a nation of onlookers. America must not remain silent.”

If Jewish students seek to build bridges with minority communities on this campus, it begins with a refusal to be “silent” and remain “onlookers” of the struggles communities of color face on this campus and in our country. It will not come if our loudest voice is the one that complains about being “silenced.”

Image source: kateausburn via Creative Commons.

Contact Noah Kulwin at nkulwin@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @noahkulwin.

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Michael Tao/File

ASUC President Connor Landgraf announced Tuesday that he will not be vetoing SB 160, a bill calling for the divestment of ASUC funds from companies associated with the Israeli military and encouraging the university to do the same.

In a statement explaining his decision, Landgraf emphasized that he did not support the bill and that it failed to contribute to any constructive dialogue on the issue. However, he ultimately decided not to veto the bill because he felt doing so would only intensify the conflict and lengthen the healing process for the community.

“I think people on both sides may disagree with my decision,” Landgraf said. “I think it’s the best decision for the campus as a whole, and both communities need to reconsider their perspectives on this issue and reconsider the value of having a 10-hour-long senate meeting that tears communities apart.”

In an interview with The Daily Californian’s Senior Editorial Board, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said he personally witnessed the emotional turmoil Landgraf underwent prior to making his decision.

“I met with Connor last night, late in the afternoon, mostly just to listen to him.” Birgeneau said. “He was really, really upset, justifiably so, given the threats against his person. I just tried to console him and give him advice.”

Before announcing his decision, Landgraf said he had been verbally assaulted and threatened. He said he has only received a few angry emails since his announcement was made.

Independent Senator Sadia Saifuddin, a co-sponsor of SB 160, said she commended Landgraf for respecting the senate’s decision.

“This issue is clearly one that affects countless students,” Saifuddin said in an email. “But I truly believe it is possible to build bridges in the wake of the passage of the bill.”

Although Landgraf said he sought to hasten the campus’s healing process with his decision, many on both sides of the issue say they feel even more uneasy following his announcement.

While members of the Jewish community acknowledged the difficulty of Landgraf’s position, many said they are disappointed by his decision. Daphna Torbati, president of the campus Jewish Student Union, said she feels that Landgraf’s decision bolsters a one-sided narrative and silences the pro-Israeli voice.

“Regardless of the veto action, much of the damage has already been done,” Torbati said in an email. “Our community is very hurt and disappointed about the sheer amount of anti-semitic and anti-Israel comments made on the senate floor last week.”

Many pro-divestment students said they remain concerned about the climate on campus and that they continue to feel uneasy about expressing their views. Two weeks before the vote occurred, one pro-divestment student was assaulted on campus, allegedly for saying he believed that Israel was an apartheid state.

“The repression is so severe that we have to fear for our physical safety,” said the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine in a statement. “Our physical safety and our right to open debate are at risk.”

SJP also noted that its members feel that their advocacy has been mislabeled by opponents as hate speech.

ASUC President-elect DeeJay Pepito emphasized that all communities need to remain respectful of opposing opinions on this complex issue.

“As students, we need to take responsibility for our own actions,” Pepito said. “Poor campus climate is not determined by a piece of legislation that the senate passes. Poor campus climate is perpetuated by students using hurtful words and resorting to violent threats towards one another.”

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

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The ASUC Senate’s deeply misguided vote to divest UC funds from companies affiliated with the Israeli military is, in one sense, utterly irrelevant. Despite its best efforts, the coterie of far-left activists that dominates student politics rarely influences university policy — Chancellor Birgeneau helpfully reminded us that the regents’ investment portfolio will not change. Or, to use the melodramatic language of the divestment bill, the University of California will continue acting as “a complicit third party” in Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. And this chapter of anti-Israel theatrics has been largely ignored by the media — at least compared to Students for Justice in Palestine’s failed 2010 bid for divestment.

For the record, I should say that I have been quite critical of the Israeli right’s suicidal push to expand settlement construction in the West Bank. I believe Israel’s future as a democratic Jewish state will be in jeopardy if it cannot reach a two-state solution in the near future.

But I was appalled by the degree of radicalism — and venom — on display at the senate’s marathon meeting last Wednesday, during which divestment advocates took control of the night. Frenzied speakers charged Israel with unspeakable atrocities as their supporters roared. Residents of Israel were smeared as European colonialists. The Holocaust was brushed aside. Some speakers defended terrorism against civilians as legitimate resistance, and the pro-divestment audience appeared to endorse the odious chant — “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — that implicitly negates the Jewish State’s right to exist. Perhaps this shouldn’t have surprised me, seeing as the Cal Students for Justice in Palestine website calls for “struggle against the apartheid regime that has consolidated itself” not only in the West Bank or Gaza, but in “1967 Israel.”

I was also surprised that pro-Israel students, who were clearly on the defensive, failed to affirmatively defend the Middle East’s only democracy on its merits — perhaps because the sense of hostility toward Israel was so palpable they considered it a lost cause. With some exceptions, arguments against the divestment initiative centered on campus climate. The only reason not to cut ties with Jewish State, an uninformed observer might think after attending the meeting, is that it would hurt the feelings of UC Berkeley’s Jewish students.

Like many political debates that take place in the ASUC Senate chambers, divestment doesn’t register in the rest of the country, where popular support for the Jewish State has risen substantially over the last decade and now matches its all-time high. Still, I found myself wondering whether what I saw at the senate meeting reflects any emerging fractures in Israel’s traditionally deep and durable coalition of American supporters.

There are some indications that it does. A report released earlier this year by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies found that support for Israel in the United States is weakest among young people, social progressives and the nonreligious. Chemi Shalev, a columnist for the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, notes that these are the very groups that are ascendant in the culture wars. Meanwhile, support is strongest among older, religious and more conservative Americans, whose influence in U.S. politics is on the decline. “Given the speed with which American attitudes are changing on other issues,” a realignment of U.S. opinion toward Israel “may be lurking just around the corner,” Shalev warns.

I would not be surprised if Millennials’ support for Israel proves to be more qualified and conditional than my parents’ and grandparents’ generations. After all, we don’t remember World War II or the Cold War and therefore don’t have as deep a sense of moral commitment to promote and defend American values abroad. One of our formative experiences was the disastrous Iraq war, which discredited neoconservatism as a foreign policy.

And then there are Middle Eastern politics. Decades ago, Israel was the underdog, perpetually under siege from powerful Arab armies seeking its annihilation. Today, thanks to Israeli ingenuity (and generous American aid), the Jewish State’s military dominates the Middle East. And as of late, hard-line Israeli leaders, empowered by Hamas terrorists, are seriously damaging Israel’s reputation — and endangering its future — with their uncompromising stance toward the Palestinians.

A generational shift in attitudes toward Israel would be welcome if it meant that America would do more to pressure Israel to make the painful territorial concessions that will be necessary to any peace agreement. This would be an act of friendship.

But Israel supporters of all political stripes must continue to do all they can to make sure that our generation isn’t won over by the destructive attitudes expressed in the senate chambers last week, where divestment activists chose militancy over moderation and demonization over dialogue.

Jason Willick is the assistant opinion page editor. Contact him at jwillick@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @jawillick.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Ha’aretz columnist Chemi Shalev.

The post After divestment appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Graham Haught/Staff

This week Tikvah: Students for Israel held our sixth annual Israel Peace and Diversity Week (IPD Week). As always, there was an array of informative lectures, exciting activities and educational events about the most vibrant democracy in the Middle East.

Israel Peace and Diversity Week has special importance given the extreme misinformation being spread about the Israeli-Arab conflict. Among some on the fringe of American politics, it has become trendy to denigrate Israel. Outlandish claims about Israel spew from the mouths of the radical and ignorant; they hold misleading events and construct mock checkpoints on campus to supposedly mimic Israeli security checkpoints. In reality, checkpoints are not at all like they are portrayed (I can attest to this having been through a few myself). Moreover, they have contributed to a decline in suicide bombings and other terrorist activities over the last 10 years. Checkpoints are removed when security conditions improve, as more than 120 have been in recent years, according to the U.N. Notably, the IDF has removed major checkpoints in the West Bank in cities such as Jericho.

Notwithstanding Republican efforts to make supporting Israel a fringe issue, support for Israel is one of the few remaining areas of consensus in American politics. There are some very good reasons for this. Israel is the Middle East’s only true democracy where fundamental human rights are respected. Minorities are not excluded from political participation. Arabs hold prominent positions in key Israeli government offices, including the Supreme Court, the Knesset, the Foreign Ministry, the police force and regional councils. Israel is also the only country in the Middle East that respects women’s and gay rights. In fact, on Thursday, Tikvah hosted an event about LGBT rights in Israel. Women comprise 23 percent of Israel’s new parliament, and gays have long been able to serve openly in the military. Israel’s economy is buoyant, affording its citizens great opportunity, while a welfare state shelters Israel’s poor.

In the troubled Middle East, Israel is a shining example of what the freedoms we cherish can make possible. Small disagreements over specific policy aside, that is why Israel merits and receives support from liberals and conservatives alike, including from our president.

That is not to say that Israeli society is perfect nor that its record regarding the Palestinians is perfect. Yet, in light of the fact that Israel has been consistently under attack since its founding, its record is truly exemplary. No other free or democratic society has held so true to its values despite constantly being under threat. No matter that the peace process can sometimes seem interminable, the majority of Israelis remain committed to it. They want to see a Palestinian state alongside theirs and to coexist without fear of suicide bombings or rocket attacks. Israel should be commended for its shining virtues, not calumniated for its comparatively petty flaws.

The story of Israel is one that all Cal students should be able to empathize with and appreciate. It is the story of a people exiled from their homeland 2,000 years ago, who always yearned to return. Through a long and bitter exile, the land of Israel ever remained in Jewish minds, hearts and daily prayers. Zionism brought about the Jewish return to their ancestral homeland, the ingathering of exiles. On Tuesday, Tikvah hosted Gina Waldman, who shared her story of exile from Libya and discussed the struggles that Jewish refugees have faced throughout the Muslim world. Israel has sought peace with its hostile neighbors since it was reborn as a state. It still does.

Tikvah: Students for Israel shares this Israeli hope. We refuse to stoop to the hate-mongering tactics of the anti-Israel movement on this campus. We desire to see a viable and prosperous Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel and peaceful coexistence.

Ariel Fridman is a member of  Tikvah: Students for Israel.

Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Christopher Yee/Senior Staff

About 15 demonstrators staged a mock military checkpoint by Sather Gate Monday afternoon in protest of Israeli soldiers’ presence on a main West Bank city thoroughfare.

The checkpoint, which was in place around 1 p.m. for about half an hour, was part of a larger series of demonstrations to raise awareness of the lack of Palestinian access to Shuhada Street, a main street in Hebron, a West Bank city under partial Israeli control.

“We were trying to show solidarity with people in Hebron and people all over the world putting on this event,” said UC Berkeley junior Joe Hodali, who participated in the demonstration.

One activist, dressed in an olive-green T-shirt reading “Israeli Defense Forces,” held a cardboard cutout of a rifle. He stood by three other demonstrators who knelt on the ground with black bags on their heads, holding paper signs that read “Criminal — Palestinian not allowed on Shuhada St.” Others stood by holding a banner that read “Open Shuhada St., End Israeli Apartheid!”

While the demonstration was not affiliated with any particular organization, many of the demonstrators are members of groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine, a UC Berkeley group, and Jewish Voice for Peace, a Bay Area organization.

“Activists in Hebron have called on the international community to do solidarity actions,” said Susannah Nachenberg, a UC Santa Cruz graduate and co-organizer of the event.

The street has been closed to Palestinians since the massacre of worshipers at a mosque in the city on Feb. 25, 1994. Monday’s action marked the 19th anniversary of the killings.

The demonstrators abided by proposed changes to the campus’s regulations concerning public expression, making sure not to obstruct traffic through Sather Gate.

The proposed changes, which follow the settlement of a lawsuit over similar demonstrations in March 2010, would require demonstrators to allow free traffic around campus buildings and would prohibit the use of imitation firearms in public campus spaces without prior approval from campus police.

While one activist did carry a cardboard cutout of a rifle, it was apparent that the prop was not a real weapon, according to UCPD spokesperson Lt. Marc DeCoulode.

Hodali filmed the group’s action and plans to edit and then share the footage on YouTube.

“What we did today wasn’t as bad as it is over there,“ Hodali said. “It was a solidarity effort.”

Megan Messerly covers city government. Contact her at mmesserly@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @meganmesserly.

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This past winter break, I went back to Israel. As I have lived there intermittently over the past few years, the trip served as a way to reconnect with family, friends and a place that has held many meaningful experiences for me. The trip was composed of a few families from my New Jersey synagogue, most of them with family members who had never been to Israel before or who had last visited decades earlier.

This time, however, was different. Last summer, I was an intern in the Tel Aviv-based international office of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a position that enabled me to take a hard look at some unpleasant truths about Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. Returning to Israel in a considerably more “depoliticized” context, even if only for 11 days, was a thought-provoking experience.

I am reminded of the cliche of “the ugly American” — the garrulous, arrogant and wealthy (usually white) American tourist who travels to exotic locales and fails to seriously engage with the reality of his surroundings. Let me be plain: This cliche does not represent my group’s outlook or political orientation, but it does reflect the content of our trip. Traveling around Israel, meeting with Israeli military leaders and hearing Jerusalem Post correspondent Gil Hoffman heap praise on right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu were all a part of my winter break. Connecting with Palestinian community leaders, traveling more deeply into the West Bank and meeting anti-occupation activists from the West Bank and Israel, on the contrary, were not.

My trip was not at all unusual. It was the trip most Americans, particularly American Jews, take to Israel. The governor of my home state, the Republican YouTube phenomenon and estimable egomaniac Chris Christie, took a trip to Israel last April. At the time, he was being considered for the Republican ticket as Mitt Romney’s running mate, and a trip to Israel was a convenient way to bolster his foreign policy credentials. He met with no Palestinians and did not even visit the territories, aside from a helicopter tour of Jerusalem neighborhoods.

During this trip, we visited the Palestinian city Barta’a, which straddles the border of Israel proper and the West Bank, but did not meet with members of the community. And while I am proud that I was part of a group of American Jews who actually entered a Palestinian city, the standard to which American Jews hold themselves on this issue is pathetic. For all the effort the American Jewish community puts into longing for Israel to be at peace with its neighbors, it has done a poor job of actually engaging with those neighbors or even encouraging Israel to do so. And if the terrible job we are doing is establishing a precedent for our politicians as well, perhaps it is time for the Jewish community to reconsider just what example we are setting with trips to Israel that marginalize Palestinian voices and amplify our own.

As time ticks away on the possibility for a negotiated peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, American Jews’ job should not be to double down on what are the egoistic and incorrect claims of “Palestinians do not want peace.” We should encourage American Jews who go on Birthright to meet Palestinians, as should members of synagogues in Boca Raton or Houston. And beyond demanding that we meet Palestinians, we should be vociferous in our advocacy for the end of the occupation. Accepting that we co-exist is not enough; it is our obligation to fight for the right to security and dignity of both Israelis and Palestinians whose lives are disrupted by occupation.

Anything short of that would be making very real the stereotype of “the ugly American,” a label that us American Jews are well on our way to earning. We are talkative about anything but human rights abuses committed by Israeli military forces. We are wealthy and use our success as the basis for our smug condescension toward the comparative lack of economic development in the Palestinian territories. And if nothing changes, I am sure that we will ultimately become our own largest stumbling block in the struggle for Middle East peace and justice. And that is an ugly fact to consider.

Image source: acroll via Creative Commons

Contact Noah Kulwin at nkulwin@dailycal.org or on Twitter: @noahkulwin.

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I recently watched the film “Kingdom of Heaven,” and I was struck by one of the final lines spoken by the character Saladin, a Muslim leader who battled to take over Jerusalem during the era of the Crusades. When questioned by Orlando Bloom’s character, Balian, a valiant defender of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, on the significance of Jerusalem, Saladin responds, “Nothing.” He walks away but turns back once more to say, “Everything.” My mind instantly turned toward our modern-day Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the question of sacred land.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered profoundly in the fighting that was recently reignited. The world has seen firsthand that missiles and bullets have the same devastating effect on the flesh of Muslims as of Jews. Yet the recent attacks have produced little more than a tenuous cease-fire agreement, fashioned with the aid of outside mediation, and both sides still cling to their land.

Today, Jerusalem is equally revered by Muslims, Jews and Christians as it was during the time of the Crusades. Old Jerusalem is in fact still divided among them: the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Jewish Quarter and the Armenian Quarter. While such destruction and death strikes me as quite godless, this place maintains a level of sanctity unmatched by any other place on Earth.

But can God live in a place? Obviously, the answer depends on whom you are asking, but the consensus of many believers is likely yes — consider the pilgrimage to Mecca or Bethlehem or even the common formulation, “God lives in your heart.” I grew up learning that God was omnipresent — but apparently, he/she hangs out a little more in some places than in others. Location, location, location.

What I do not understand is how a faith-filled believer can justify murder and violence in an area that allegedly possesses this divine quality. Let’s consider a comparison with the real estate market. When any crime is committed within a house, especially violent crimes, the value of the home usually decreases if this history is known to the buyer. According to this logic, why do some insist that God is closest to humankind in a place of such great bloodshed?

And of course there are political motivations when declaring a site holy or sacred, but the politics are only one part of the equation. During my trip to Israel last summer, I was absolutely shocked by the tears, prayers and outward devotion that many locals and tourists alike took to in front of the Wailing Wall, on the Via Dolorosa or near the Dome of the Rock. The experience of God amplified in one specific place is very real for some people, and I suspect this notion continues to contribute to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians today.

For those of us who do not link our religion or our spirituality to one locale, I think this experience of something greater has been felt at one time or another by everyone, sometimes in the strangest of places. It may even be as simple as an acute feeling of insignificance when standing next to the ocean. I often sense some type of holiness, for lack of a better word, when I’m in nature. Whatever it may be, the Earth, or a god, does have a funny way of giving the impression that a place has power.

This power may be real, symbolic or imagined, but it is no less invigorating for the person in its midst. So while it may be tempting to scoff at a population that claims such a force in a certain place, mocking that assertion does not make it any less true for that population, nor does it make it any less attached to that place.

The “everything” that Saladin refers to in the film is elusive, but understanding what that means is essential to resolving conflict around it. I am neither pro-Palestine nor pro-Israel, but I do see a potential common ground in this concept of sacred land. Even though land is notorious for causing disagreement, a “holy land” could be used and shared as a site of peace. Look no further than Jerusalem itself to see that co-existence and mutual respect, though not always perfect, is possible.

Of course, solutions to problems such as these are complicated. I do not claim to have all the answers, but we can only get closer to resolution by thinking critically about and engaging with the subject matter. Over this past semester, these columns have been my place to wrestle with a vast array of issues and problems related to religion and spirituality. At times, I know my opinions have inspired, angered, frustrated and confused. But I am most proud that they have opened a dialogue. And while I doubt there is anything holy among these words, I do hope that they have possessed some power that is bigger than one columnist to create a deeper understanding among people of all faith backgrounds.

Contact Hannah Brady at hbrady@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter: @brady_hm.

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