Swarthmore Students Are Learning: It Was Never About Palestinian Rights
Students at Swarthmore College are so close to understanding the conflict.
An article in the Swarthmore Phoenix details the frustrations of student activists with the college’s Students for Justice in Palestine.
The gist of their criticism is that SJP’s tactics do not appear designed to accomplish results. According to the paper, “[a] recurrent criticism expressed by activists…was the perception that SJP had little interest in convincing or even talking with those on the fence or opposed to their goals.” SJP, according to some of the students interviewed, has adopted an “adversarial tone towards the general student body” and “ridicules” anyone who does not espouse absolute fealty to the most extreme of positions.
Among those extreme positions, espoused in an SJP membership application form: “Palestinians have a right to resist the occupation of their land.”
Those students interviewed by the Swarthmore Phoenix expressed confusion about the tactics. One of the students claimed that “SJP is unambiguously ineffective at achieving its stated goals,” while another suggested that the Swarthmore anti-Israel boycott campaign is now further out of reach because of SJP’s tactics.
Perhaps their confusion stems from a mistaken belief that anything SJP does is actually meant to benefit the Palestinian people, rather than deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination and Jewish students their right to enjoy university life without antisemitic and anti-Israel extremism.
Don’t take my word for it. SJP’s response to the Swarthmore Phoenix says it all: “The issues being addressed by this national movement are not ‘Palestinian issues’ but rather Zionism, the largest moral crisis of our lifetime.”
It’s not about supporting Palestinian self-determination – it’s about opposing Jewish self-determination. It’s not about Palestinian rights; it’s about describing the vast majority of Jews around the world as “the largest moral crisis of our lifetime.”
A 1935 Der Sturmer billboard with a subheading reading: “The Jews are our misfortune.”
The sooner well-meaning but ill-informed students start taking extremist organizations like SJP for their word, the closer we’ll be toward improving the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians.
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