[919] in peace2
Jewish Collegians Prepare PR War; Bush Defends Israeli Racism
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Felix F AuYeung)
Sun Aug 26 16:05:05 2001
To: peace-list@mit.edu
Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 15:48:49 -0400
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From: Felix F AuYeung <felixauyeung@juno.com>
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/25/education/25HILL.html?searchpv=day01
Jewish Collegians Prepare to Defend Israel on the Campuses
By JODI WILGOREN
New York Times
August 25, 2001
HONESDALE, Pa., Aug. 22 — As they do every summer, Jewish student leaders
flocked to a mountain retreat here this week to trade ideas, hone
leadership skills, meet potential mates.
But this year for the first time, the 400 students, from 155 colleges and
universities, also spent an entire day training to defend Israel, arming
themselves for the public relations war over the Middle East raging on
campuses from Berkeley to Boston.
As the first anniversary of the onset of the current Palestinian uprising
approaches in September, leaders of Jewish organizations are anticipating
a surge in campus protests over Middle East politics, part of a broader
growth in student activism. After a year of increased demonstrations,
Arab-American groups plan a campaign this fall, modeled on the
anti-apartheid movement of the 1980's, to urge universities to divest
themselves of holdings in companies doing business with Israel.
And so the message at the conference, sponsored by Hillel, the leading
Jewish campus organization, is be prepared, be positive, be proactive.
"As much as we are counting on our soldiers back in Israel to protect
Israel, we are counting on you," Giora Becher, Israel's consul general in
Philadelphia, told the students, many in T-shirts with Hebrew lettering.
"You are our soldiers, you are our commandos, in the public campaign we
are having here."
Like similar seminars for Israeli diplomats, the program urged students
to stay focused on the issues of sovereignty and security, and not to let
well-organized, impassioned pro- Palestinian groups frame the debate as
one of human rights.
Acknowledging that even students active in Jewish life often have weak
connections to Israel, the Hillel classes also tried to impart facts,
with a spin, about the history, the politics and the culture of the
Middle East. Along with rabbis and Israeli politicians, the roster of
speakers included P.R. professionals schooled in hasbarah, Hebrew for
what literally translates as "explanation" but in common usage means
propaganda.
In one workshop, "The A B C's of Zionist Legitimacy: How to Feel More
Secure About Discussing Israel on Campus," students pondered responses to
scenarios imagined from the campus headlines of last year. What if Arab
students erect checkpoints on the quad, pretending to be Israeli soldiers
as they search backpacks? Or if the Muslim Students Association stages a
mock war- crimes tribunal, with Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister,
as chief defendant?
"You have to be physically present," Bracha Brumer of the University of
Toronto suggested. "Submit to the checkpoint yourself. People could write
on their shirts, `No bombs, no checkpoints.' "
Though Arab and Muslim students have no parallel leadership boot camp,
they too are preparing for the fall. They plan to have vigils on scores
of campuses in connection with the anniversary of the current intifada's
start last Sept. 28, and to spread the checkpoint idea — tried last year
at the University of California at Berkeley, among other campuses — far
and wide.
Berkeley will also be host this fall to a conference where students hope
to start the divestment drive, complete with mock refugee camps like the
shantytowns of another era of campus protest.
"South Africa was the 80's; Israel, for 50 years, has been an apartheid
state," said Altaf Husain, president of the national Muslim Students
Association. "Even if the Jewish kids are to wake up and try to
counteract this Muslim, pro-Palestinian, pro-Jerusalem effort, the facts
will speak for themselves."
Jews far outnumber Arabs on most campuses, but are often less united in
opinions on the Middle East. Hillel is an umbrella group most concerned
with Jewish identity broadly, not Zionism in particular; students may
join for religious fellowship, bagel brunches or kosher- hot-dog-eating
contests — or to get dates. ("The point of the experience is to make
Jewish marriages," the philanthropist Michael Steinhardt told students
here, only half-joking.)
But as violence flares in the Middle East, Hillel leaders become de facto
advocates, and they are frequently no match for Arab students whose
relatives live in the occupied territories or the refugee camps.
"These Muslim kids know so much about what's going on, they know their
arguments," said Mitchell Shankman, 19, from Ohio State University. "We
just know we're Jewish and we enjoy being Jewish."
So Hillel sent 40 students, including Mr. Shankman, on a three-week
mission to Israel this summer for a crash course on the conflict.
The one-day seminar here at Camp Moshava, a religious-Zionist summer camp
on a tree-rimmed hill about 150 miles from New York, had similar goals.
It also reflected a growing attention to Israel within Hillel, which has
helped send 10,000 college students on 10-day trips there since January
2000.
Lenny Ben-David, a consultant on Israeli affairs, urged the students here
to plan demonstrations for 100 days dating from the bombing of a
Jerusalem pizzeria on Aug. 9. Brian Jaffee, director of Hamagshimim, a
campus Zionist group, suggested events on behalf of Israeli soldiers
missing in action.
As the sun set on students dancing with Israeli flags around a makeshift
paper Western Wall and singing "Am Yisroel Chai" — "The Nation of Israel
Lives" — the challenge facing the Hillel leaders was clear. In small
groups reviewing the sessions, many students complained that the seminars
had been one-sided rather than a source of unbiased information.
"I'm here to relax and learn things — I'm not here to become an
activist," said a young man in a football jersey, who escaped the
workshops to pass much of the afternoon listening to Ozzy Osbourne.
"They're preaching how they want us to act; I don't want to be told how
to act."
Another student admitted that she had known little about Israel that
morning, but was unsure about what she had learned. "I want to be
informed," she said, "but I wanted to be informed on both sides."
*****
Bush Defends Israel on Racism Charge
International Herald Tribune
Compiled by Our Staff From Dispatches AP, Reuters
Saturday, August 25, 2001
U.S. to Boycott Global Conference If Arab Countries 'Pick On' Ally
CRAWFORD, Texas President George W. Bush reaffirmed Friday his
administration's threat to boycott next week's global conference on
racism, asserting that the United States would not attend if the
gathering were used as a means to "pick on Israel."
.
The president said at a news conference that he had told President Thabo
Mbeki of South Africa that the United States would not send a delegation
to the United Nations conference if Arab nations persisted in equating
Zionism with racism.
.
"We will have no representative there so long as they pick on Israel,"
Mr. Bush said. "If they use the forum as a way to isolate our friend and
strong ally, we will not participate."
.
Mr. Bush spoke during a news conference at which he announced the
nomination of Air Force General Richard Myers to be chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. Afterward, he returned to his ranch, where he has been
vacationing.
.
The president also commented on these other issues:
.
•He urged Congress not to "go hog wild" on spending, saying a little
belt-tightening was needed while the economy corrects itself. "There's
not as much money around Washington as there used to be," he said. But he
said the United States would make it through the current economic
slowdown if Congress resisted the urge to spend.
.
•He said Yasser Arafat could help stop the violence in the Middle East if
he made a bigger effort. "The Israelis will not negotiate under terrorist
threat. It's as simple as that," he said "If the Palestinians are
interested in a dialogue, then I would strongly urge Mr. Arafat to put
100 percent effort into stopping the terrorist activity and I believe he
can do a better job of doing that."
.
•Speaking publicly for the first time about a government intern who has
been missing since April, Mr. Bush said his heart was with the parents of
the woman, Chandra Levy, and that attention should be focused on finding
her, rather than on the conduct of Representative Gary Condit, Democrat
of California, who has said he had a close relationship with her. "This
isn't about a congressman," Mr. Bush said. "This is about a family who
lost a daughter, and that's what I'm concerned about." (Page 3)
.
Civil rights activists have urged Mr. Bush to send a high-level
delegation, headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell, to the racism
conference, which will convene in Durban, South Africa, next week. They
say the United States would be shirking its moral responsibility if it
failed to attend.
.
But the Bush administration has said it would sit out the event if the
discussions accommodated the Arab nations' desire to denounce Zionism as
racist, and African demands on reparations for slavery.
.
Mr. Bush said Friday that U.S. objections over reparations had been
addressed. "The fundamental issue is whether Israel will be treated with
respect," he said.
.
Negotiations in Geneva over language in the final conference texts ended
in failure last week. Disagreements on the agenda kept the United States
from attending two previous UN-sponsored conferences on racism.
.
U.S. officials are trying to decide whether to boycott the conference or
send a low-level delegation. The president did not say Friday when he
would make a decision in the matter.
.
Nasser Kidwa, the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, said
Friday that he expects the conference's message to be that racism is
unacceptable, "including those manifestations which are coming from
Israel."
.
"Israel cannot be exempted from that, period," Mr. Kidwa said.
.
The associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who is
heading a delegation of Jewish groups to the conference, said Mr. Bush
was correct to threaten a boycott, "if a potentially historic
international gathering on racism turns out to be little more than an
anti-Israel lynch mob." (AP, Reuters)
.
Bush Vows to Quit ABM Pact
.
David E. Sanger of The New York Times reported earlier from Crawford,
Texas:
.
President Bush has said that the United States will withdraw from the
1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty "at a time convenient to America."
.
But he insisted Thursday that he had "no specific timetable in mind" as
to when he would scrap the agreement so his administration could begin
testing a missile-defense system.
.
The comments, made Thursday while Mr. Bush was visiting an elementary
school in Crawford, marked his most definitive statement yet that he
planned to walk away from the treaty.
.
Previously, he said that the United States would abandon the treaty only
if it could not work out an agreement on defense systems with Russia.
.
The strong wording he used Thursday might have been a tactic to press the
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to begin negotiations or risk getting
nothing if the United States scraps the treaty.
.
Mr. Bush began his comments by saying, "We don't have a date" for
withdrawing from the treaty, though, by simple arithmetic, the Pentagon's
hopes to begin testing by late next spring would require an announcement
by late this fall that the United States, for the first time, was
unilaterally abandoning a major arms-control pact.
.
Both Russia and the United States have the right to withdraw from the
treaty after giving the other six months' notice.
.
"We will withdraw from the ABM Treaty on our timetable at a time
convenient to America," he said.
.
He added: "And one of the things I've said in the course of questions
about the ABM Treaty, I said that we would consult closely with our
allies in Europe as well as continue to consult closely with Mr. Putin."
.
For months now there has been little doubt that Mr. Bush would get rid of
the ABM Treaty. But the question has always hinged on how he would do it,
with the cooperation of Russia, and thus the European allies, or over
their objections.
.
European officials complained through the early summer that Mr. Bush's
consultations with allies appeared largely for show. But when Mr. Bush
made his most recent trip to Europe in late July, he found that some
European leaders seemed more open to scrapping the treaty if Mr. Putin
would go along with that.
.
Mr. Putin himself seemed open to the discussion after meeting Mr. Bush in
Genoa, Italy, but all summer Russian officials have resisted detailed
talks, including on how they might contribute to anti-missile technology.
*****
sheesh, and we wonder why the us got voted off the un human rights
commission. also, does shrub have the authority to abolish a treaty in
the name of america, ie bypass congress?
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