Hi my name is Noam Morchy and I am the head of the JNVR initiative, aimed at fighting Antisemitism with Non Violent Resistance methods. During the last month I went to two Apartheid-week events. One organized by SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) in the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the other by SJP in the University of Illinois in Chicago. Madison is not considered a hardcore chapter; Chicago, on the other, hand is notorious for its pro-Palestinian activity.
The events revolved around an “Apartheid Wall” erected on the University premises. Both took around 3 hours and were small in scale. The number of activists never crossed 20. Most activists looked middle eastern and about half spoke Arabic to some extent. All seemed of University age.
In both events, flyers were handed out, and passing students were asked to sign a petition. In Chicago, there was a loudspeaker and the activists chanted some slogans. Some of the chanting referred to Israel as racist and an Apartheid state; some demanded to cut US funding to Israel. The most aggressive chants were “No justice! No peace!” and the inevitable “From the river to the sea…”.
In both cases I arrived as soon as the event started and sat in plain sight, about 30 ft from the activists, with a Star-of-David cap on my head. All were very aware of my presence. At some point I could hear one activist saying: “I don’t care if this Zionist is reporting what we’re doing…”. Also, one activist approached me and Politely offered me a flyer. Otherwise there was no interaction. No one approached me, confronted me or demanded that I leave. Mostly they avoided eye-contact and skirted around where I sat.
So, I have some conclusions, and I think you should pay attention. I have spent my whole life experiencing and researching the subject of conflict management and resolution, especially with Arab adversaries. I may not be completely right with my conclusions, but I can pretty much assure you that I am not completely wrong.
Mostly the activists seemed human enough. Horrible but true. There was nothing grim or violent in their behavior. They seemed to have the strong bonding Israelis have when serving in the army together. When chanting, they seemed embarrassed and couldn’t keep it up for more than a few minutes at a time. In short, there seemed to be nothing rabid or menacing about them. I admit, hearing the chanting for the first time, I felt a little jolt, but otherwise, during the six hours I spent in SJP apartheid events, I felt completely safe.
When handled correctly, most of these events and people should not be considered a menace, let alone a threat. They may cause us to feel discomfort or resentment, but we should bring the SJP Bogeyman back to normal proportions. In my assessment, almost all of our interaction with SJP and co. is either through fight or flight. When we avoid them, we naturally have no real assessment of the threat; when we confront them, we see them through the rush of adrenaline and the aggressive interaction we bring out of each other. When looked at after a deep breath, they go back to what they are: university kids with a problematic agenda and a rhetoric that’s a couple of sizes big on them. And the key is NON VIOLENCE. The more we confront, the more we resent, the more we try to shoot down SJP, we are signaling that this is a fight. When we stand our ground – attending every possible SJP event, never backing down, never hiding our Jewishness – we win our right to live as we choose but we do not fuel the conflict. Without that fuel, people – even Palestinians – find it extremely hard to fight.
Not all interactions take place on the quad in broad daylight. People, unobserved, may dare a lot more than they do in public. That is true. But consider this: these people have spent three hours in a state of heightened spirits. They chanted, they sang, they enjoyed their comraderie and were probably on their most Anti-Zionist mood during the event. And all that time, they had an overtly Jewish person sitting there, staring them right in the eye. Whether they like it or not, they have been conditioned, to some extent, to disassociate national sentiment from the possible urge to hurt random Jews. The next time they meet me on campus, they will not have the initial drive to confront me. This is not exact science but, in my experience, it is a very solid assumption.
Another way of looking at it may appeal more to some of us diehards. Anti-Zionists’ goal would usually be to scare and deter us, from being publicly Jewish or Zionist. When we sit, non-violently, through a public anti-Israeli event, we announce in advance that we don’t care about possible consequences or threats. We are what we are and that’s that. It is also an excellent way of avoiding the pitfall of defining yourself only through opposition – a known Palestinian disease. In this scenario, we only adhere to OUR agenda. We are not anti-Palestinian. We are pro-Jewish, pro-Zionist.
So, what’s the bottom line? You’re not going to like it, but you better listen: STOP FIGHTING!
Stand up for yourselves as Jews, as Zionists, as whatever you want, but DO NOT FIGHT. In the campus arena, there is no way to vanquish our adversary. We cannot make it disappear, we cannot kick it out of campus, and when we try, we fail and escalate things further. If we want to regain our safety and pride we need to grow a backbone, find our courage, and simply STAND UP. That’s it. And don’t wait for anybody to do this for you. No organization will help you mobilize for this weird concept that doesn’t make headlines and doesn’t raise donations. The only way this work is if WE, stand up, WE meet the threat, WE never back down. Just we. Nobody else.
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