Reflections on the PSM 1 year later

One year ago today, Phil Kurian, Trinity '05, published the now notorious column "The Jews" in which he attacked the "shocking overrepresentation" of Jewish students at top universities throughout the country. Citing famed Holocaust denier Norman Finkelstein, Kurian descried Jewish exploitation of the "Holocaust Industry" and described the Jewish people as a "very well-funded and well-organized establishment."

Kurian's column, however, was not an aberration but rather a continuation of the largely anti-Israel and in many cases anti-Semitic propaganda that flooded this campus during the Palestine Solidarity Movement's annual conference. Held the weekend immediately preceding the publication of the column, the PSM brought together a wide range of anti-Israel activists ranging from outright supporters of suicide bombings and terrorist organizations, such as representatives of the International Solidarity Movement, to concerned Israeli Refuseniks opposed to the continued occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

I am not interested in rehashing the various events related to PSM and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that took place that weekend and throughout the semester. I am instead intrigued by the state of affairs one year later when it almost feels as if the conference-and Kurian's column for that matter-never occurred. I was initially stupefied by the lack of follow-up to the conference during the spring and now fall semester. I have noticed that the students responsible for the PSM have largely been silent on the issue.

It finally dawned on me that Israel, like Tibet and South Africa before it, was simply the hot button issue for the leftist "Cause Heads" who are now wrapped up in Darfur and the Iraq War. I like to believe that the activists finally accepted Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state with safe and secure borders and recognized Israel's immense contribution to the peace process through its unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. But I believe the lack of attention has more to do with boredom and the current state of affairs in the world than with any ideological reawakening.

This is the case not only at Duke but also at the national level. An upcoming student conference on Socially Responsible Investing at the University of Pennsylvania will not even address Israel. Once the darling of the divestment movement, Israel has been replaced by Sudan. As one Duke student involved in the conference told me, "We are including Sudan this year because many campuses have big Sudan campaigns right now, and we are hoping they will come and will want to get involved with other SRI issues." Rann Bar-on, meanwhile, a Duke graduate student in mathematics and the face of PSM last fall, has been busy disseminating anti-Iraq War materials and marching on the quad.

On the pro-Israel side, however, student support has continued unabated. Unlike our counterparts who are often raised in leftist homes dedicated to a range of leftist causes, pro-Israel students grow up with Israel in the home, synagogue and often private school and summer camp as well. Israel is not a cause but rather a passion that will command our attention regardless of what else is going on in the world. It is not that we are unconcerned with world affairs but rather that the Jewish state is more than just another news update in the press. No longer forced to deal with PSM, Duke Friends of Israel, of which I am a member and past president, spent its last general body meeting listening to Israeli music and discussing the future of the peace process following Disengagement.

I do not want to get ahead of myself and caution against replacing vigilance with complacency. We may already be six weeks into the semester, but Hiwar (the student group that officially sponsored the PSM) is bringing its first anti-Israel speaker to campus tonight. It is simply impossible to discount the virulent anti-Israel sentiment that pervaded last year's conference and certain student groups at Duke. Pro-Israel supporters on college campuses throughout North America have a long way to go as Israel confronts a number of extremely sensitive issues, such as the direction of the security fence, the status of West Bank settlements and the future of the Likud Party.

But whether Israel becomes the cause celebre again for the anti-establishment left, I am confident that pro-Israel activism among Jewish students will continue long after the "Cause Heads" and Religious Right have moved on to what they deem to be more pressing domestic and international issues. For as our parents and grandparents have done ever year at their Passover Seders, we will continue to proclaim: Ba'shanah Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim-Next Year in Jerusalem.